


someday we will foresee obstacles (through the blizzard)

by rathernotmyname



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018) Actor RPF
Genre: >:), Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Miscommunication, Not Canon Compliant, Rami and Joe need a hug, Scientific Inaccuracies, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Spoilers: Rami and Joe get a hug, Title from "Obstacles" by Syd Matters, Yes you read that right, as far as reality can be canon, at least somewhat, but also idiots, like... so many, please dont research this too thoroughly, the ocs are all minor characters don't worry, these boys are soft, this fic isnt long enough for proper slow burn, this is the Joe and Rami in the Arctic!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27461293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rathernotmyname/pseuds/rathernotmyname
Summary: “Hi Mom, you wouldn‘t believe how fucking cold it is around here."Joe is a glaciologist on the research vessel"Polarstern II". Rami is a marine biologist, and also a professional scuba diver.A lot can (and will) happen in the time between two calls with one's mom.Written for the "2 Years of BoRhap" fic exchange.
Relationships: Ben Hardy & Gwilym Lee, Gwilym Lee & Joe Mazzello, Gwilym Lee & Rami Malek & Joe Mazzello, Rami Malek & Joe Mazzello, Rami Malek/Joe Mazzello
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12
Collections: Two Years of BoRhap 2020 Exchange





	someday we will foresee obstacles (through the blizzard)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sweet_symphony0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweet_symphony0/gifts).



> Author's note:  
> I DO NOT CONSENT TO MY WORK BEING HOSTED OR REPOSTED ON ANY UNOFFICIAL APPS OR WEBSITES OTHER THAN ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN WITHOUT MY APPROVAL, PARTICULARLY APPS WITH AD REVENUE AND SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES.

“Hi Mom, you wouldn‘t believe how fucking cold it is around here. We’ve had someone with frostbite already, but it’s not so bad, so don’t worry.”

Joe scratched his nose, then rubbed a hand down his face. The buzzing of the ceiling light gave him a headache, but the unused cargo room was his favorite place of retreat.

“I’m still stuck on that project I told you about before,” he continued, staring into the small, blinking webcam. “I still can’t figure out why the air percentage is so damn high. I mean, it’s a fucking glacier in the arctic. The number should be at like, two percent? Or three? You know how it goes.”

He leaned back, the metal chair he was sitting on scraping across the ground with a high-pitched shriek. He winced. “Christ, I’m sorry. I hope you’re not listening to this with headphones.”

A  small beep of his wrist watch made him aware of the time that had passed. 

“Sorry that I have to cut this short, but I don’t really have a lot to report. And I’m late for dinner, too. I hope you’re doing well. I’ll try to get a live-call to work in a few days. Well, anyway.”

He leaned forward again, smiling at the camera.

“The sweater you send me actually arrived! Can you imagine? Unfortunately, it’s too small for me. It must’ve shrunken on the way.”

(That was untrue. His mom was just not very good at taking measurements.)

“I’ll give it to my colleague Jason as a Christmas present, if that’s alright with you? He’s getting one cold after another at the moment, poor guy. And he already said he’s got some kick-ass gift for me, so an awesome sweater would be just perfect for him. But only if you’re okay with that, of course.”

His watch beeped again.

“Okay, I really need to go now. Send my best wishes to Mary and John and their spawns, will you? I love you. See you soon!”

He pressed a key on the laptop on the other chair in front of him and ended the video.

A loud gust of wind rattled the  window to his right side, and even though he was toasty and warm in his  four layers or so of clothing, he shuddered in sympathy for every scientist and polar bear that w as outside right now.

His way to the canteen was undisturbed.  Only a few interns in jogging suits passed by, too engrossed in their discussion about which kayak paddle was the best one to bother  him .

The  American research center in  Ny-Ålesund  was only one of many. The station directly across from them was staffed with geologists from India, the one to their right with meteorologists from  Japan . 

And that was only a sixth of the current population. 

It was always possible to meet with a few Germans to go snowmobile riding or visit the local museum with a  friendly fellow  g laciologist  from  Italy .

Life and work there was thoroughly enjoyable.

The tourists that showed up every few months didn’t disturb the harmony, except when they thought it necessary to drag a poor arctic fox out of his den to take a selfie with him.

Joe remembered very well how the indigenous tour guide had ripped them a new one, breath a white-hot cloud of anger in front of his face.

Well. The tourists were bearable, but they thankfully never stayed longer than three weeks or less.

The various scientists milling around normally only stayed in the summer months,  since the snowstorms got ferocious during the winter months. 

Joe threw a look through a window he passed, seeing nothing but whirling white and bits of gray sky. Yeah, he could imagine why a polar light watcher rather went home as soon as summer ended. 

His ill-fitting sweater had arrived with the supply vessel that came eight times a year, bringing food and anything a scientist needed, such as new lenses for their microscopes, batteries, socks without holes or, in his case, a sweater.

Joe had arrived  9 months ago, and found himself missing home less than he had imagined he would. Sure, it was fucking cold, but there was so much to love on Ny-Ålesund. For one thing, it was clean as all hell. 

No trash on the floor to keep the arctic foxes healthy that built their dens around the houses,  barely any smokers ,  there was a dog yard where the huskies waited on their turn to pull a sleigh, and you could watch Svalbard deer run around in the evenings. 

The houses were multicolored, appearing as if one had stepped into a travel brochure, now covered in icicles and coated with glittering snow.

It was as if the “northernmost community in the world” was just a part of nature, peacefully existing side by side with the animals and marvelous sights.

I t was a place to fall in love with, Joe had told his sister once. And if he could have lived there for the rest of his life, he would. 

Mary had thrown in that his nephews missed him terribly, so he had to come back home eventually,  and Joe had given in, if only to keep the conversation flowing. 

His family had been hesitant to let him go to the Arctic, out of obvious reasons, but also because they were tightly knit. A family member living over 3,5 thousand miles away was a novelty, to say the least.

Entering the canteen, Joe spotted his colleague in a seconds notice, entertaining an entire table of physicians.

Jason Pham was a middle-aged man with the most impressive mustache Joe had ever seen. Coming to Ny-Ålesund had always been Jason’s biggest dream, and seeing that there was a glacier in whatever direction one looked, it was the perfect place for him.

Joe  had  met him on the ship, where they had their first ‘academic fight’, as Jason liked to call them.  It was a stormy affair, ending with both of them out of breath and becoming good friends. 

It was Jason’s fourteenth journey to  Ny-Ålesund,  and his sixth journey as senior project manager. He had seen things that Joe could only awe at, and had fought against many a polar bear. At least he claimed that, but his colleagues didn’t seem to want to share the true versions of his stories, instead choosing to grin and listen.

“I was very sure that that glacier was not supposed to be that small,” Jason declared as Joe stood in line with his tray to get his dinner. Lasagna. Yum.

“After all, I had made measurements and all the crap you’re supposed to do, right? I had even taken a whole batch of fucking pictures, but the captain wouldn’t see reason. He was adamant about it having shrunk to a quarter of its height in a matter of five hours. Claimed it was climate change.”

A young woman in a lab coat laughed, exposing enviably white teeth.

Jason turned to her and nodded, his face alight with passion and joy at her reaction. “That was my reaction, exactly. But that bastard was dead serious.”

Joe poured orange juice in one cup and coffee in another, carrying both to the table in the middle of the canteen where Jason had now stood up to impersonate the captain, sticking his nose in the air and pretending to smooth down a greased-up hairdo. Jason’s baldness  amplified the hilarity.

“So I say to him: Captain, I say, it’s the middle of winter, there’s a snowstorm outside, even worse than the one we have right now, mind you, and if a glacier of that size had shrunken to a quarter – a _quarter_! - of its original mass we would have heard about it in the news, because I’m pretty sure New Orleans would be 40 feet under water right now if what you’re saying was true.”

The scientists gathered around him burst into  roaring laughter, still holding onto their forks and coffee mugs. 

Joe grinned. He had heard that story about ten times already, and every time the glacier shrunk a little more, but it was still fucking hilarious.

“He was mighty mad at me, as you can imagine. Acted as if I had pissed on his shoes, that bossy cunt.”

A young intern snorted into his coffee.

“Bless you, young man. As I was saying, there was no possible way that this was the very same glacier, but the question remained where it had gone to. I mean, that wanker was fucking massive. It was very hard to not notice it, at least the day before. Normally, glaciers at big as that one don’t paddle so far that you can’t see them anymore in a matter of four or five hours. So where did he go?”

Joe quickly swallowed his mouthful of lasagna, grinning like a maniac. He didn’t want to miss the punchline.

Jason giggled, losing his serious manner for a moment. The physicians around him leaned closer, unbearably curious what amused their storyteller so much.

“Well, you see,” Jason began, scratching his ear with one hand and crossing his other arm in front of his chest, face taking on a deadpan expression, “I was right. As always.” 

A round of choked cackles interrupted him.

“Well, can any of you prove the contrary? Didn’t think so,” he said without waiting for an answer. “Anyway. The glacier was of course still where it had been, as innocent as a glacier can be. Turns out that _we_ had moved, without the captain noticing. Which was bad. For him, I mean.”

Joe couldn’t bear it anymore. He leaned back on his chair and guffawed, eyes squeezed shut and torso heaving.

“As you probably know, a captain is always supposed to know what’s going on on and with his ship. He was also responsible for our sonar, which tells you a lot about a man’s skills at the sonar if he doesn’t notice his position changing. Shortly said, he had really failed in his job choice.”

The physicians were hanging over the table, forks and coffee cups carefully pushed to the side, wrecked with laughter and making the table shake with their fitful breathing and giggling.

“And to make things worse, we didn’t have any orientation anymore, since he hadn’t noticed the ship moving and there was also this particularly bothersome snowstorm outside, as you may remember,” Jason said, wagging his hands to depict harsh wind. 

“So then he orders us to turn around to get back to the point where my glacier was, just so he knew where the exit was. We advised him to use a compass, but Captain _Better And Also Holier Than Thou_ didn’t need a compass. He could orientate himself using the stars, he said. I thought about telling him that there was still a snowstorm raging outside, but to be honest with you, I had completely given up on his common sense by that time. So we turned around. It was quiet for an hour or so, because smarty-pants had gotten his way, and he was pleased as all punch.” 

Jason let his hands fall back to his sides. “And then, my dear colleagues, suddenly the floor was shaking and an ear-shattering boom startled every respectable scientist out of his misery.” He mimicked an explosion with his hands.

“We could hear the captain shouting something, but we were a little occupied with rescuing a few important instruments from their certain deaths. Also, the floor seemed to be a little lopsided and it had gotten really fucking cold. And do you want to know why?”

Joe was fighting to not fall off his chair at this point, clinging to the tabletop with all of his leftover strength.

Jason seemed to deflate, head tipping to the side, eyes closing.

“Because the captain had rammed my glacier,” he sighed, burying his face in one hand.

The entire room exploded into resounding laughter.

Jason, satisfied with their reception of his story, sat back down and started to eat his lasagna. As the physicians around him began to calm down a little, he opened his mouth once more.

“After that experience, I vowed to never step a foot on a research vessel ever again, and so far I’ve made good by my promise. So to anyone going on the _Polarstern II_ in two months, I will not be able to join you there. To get back to my point; the good thing was that our ship wasn’t too broken.”

He shoved a forkful of lasagna into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. Then he looked up, spotting Joe sitting at the table across from him. He smiled and winked.

“But guess who got to keep his job? I’ll give you a hint: I met the captain at McDonald’s lately, but I won’t tell you on which side of the counter he was.”

Joe was a little worried that any of the physicians would bust a lung in the following fits of laughter. He winked back at Jason and finished his coffee, making plans with him per hand-signs to meet up for a round of Go Swim later.

* * *

“So I really can’t make up your mind about joining me on the _Polarstern_?”

“No. Even if you could, I’d have to wait until next year to be able. All cabins are full, so I heard.”

Joe scratched his nose. “Got a seven?”

“Go fish.”

“Well, that’s a shame. With the cabins, I mean. Weren’t there some free just a few months ago?”

“Yes, well, that was a few months ago, and they were actively searching for people with specific talents. Hired a few absolutely mad cunts. Scuba divers and such.”

Joe, who’d taken a sip of his coffee, almost choked and quickly set down his mug. _“Scuba divers?”_

“Uh-huh.” Jason glanced at his watch. “Got a death wish, all of them, I’d bet. Most scuba divers turning up here are those who have absolutely nothing to lose. Scientific mercenaries, you could call them. And they gotta be, else they wouldn’t do it. You know how long a man can stay in the water at this temperature?” he asked, pointing to a frosted window with his finger.

Joe shook his head mutely.

“Me neither, but it’s not long, I’d say. They got oxygen in their cute little tanks for six hours and die when they stay in the water for longer than half of it. Gotta have a death wish to do that for a living, I say.”

Joe didn’t know enough about scuba diving equipment to argue, so he kept his mouth shut.

Scientific mercenaries? Oh joy.

“Maybe they are just adventurous,” he said, flipping through his meager rest of cards.

Jason snorted. “Oh, no doubt about that. Adventurous, ha! As if working in the arctic wasn’t enough. We’re actually getting funds without having to  fall to our knees and beg for them. That’s enough adventure for me, thank you. Any  nines ?”

Later, when Joe crept into the bedroom cabin he shared with three others, he thought about swimming around in the ice cold water. He couldn’t really imagine doing it voluntarily.

He had tried the full Finnish sauna experience  _once_ ,  which included  first sweating yourself to death, then slapping your entire body with some twig to stimulate  your circulation  or something , which hurt more than it looked, and lastly jumping into a pool of water, room temperature. 

Room temperature in this case meant a few degrees above freezing. He had _not_ enjoyed it.

The Finns  and  Norwegians had laughed at him, but he preferred the teasing over feeling like his heart would stop any minute. The worst thing was that the ‘proper’ version of the Finnish sauna was  _repeating_ the steps until you were fed up with it, as the Finns had helpfully explained  to him. Brr.

The  cramped, wooden  bunk bed creaked when Joe settled in the lower bed, but his roommates didn’t wake up. Small mercies, Joe thought, because he had already experienced how they were like when rudely  awoken .

He made a little cross on the calendar he kept on the headboard that doubled as a cupboard, counting the days until Christmas (13 days) and the days until the _Polarstern_ departed, with him on board as assistant of the head glaciologist (56 days). He would stay on the _Polarstern_ for six months, then getting off at Ny-Ålesund again and beginning his long journey home a little later, just in time for his birthday.

Grinning at the calender, Jason’s story still replaying in his head, he fell asleep, dreaming of scuba divers being chased into the water by polar bears with pine twigs in their paws.

* * *

The two months went over quicker than Joe had anticipated. The day the _Polarstern_ _II_ landed at Ny-Ålesund was one of the busiest ones he could remember ever having in the time he had been there.

It was snowing softly, the sun burning her orange-red beams through gray clouds, blinding him when he looked at the snow at a particular angle.

He had chosen to wear the beautiful, colorful scarf that Jason had gifted him for Christmas as an honor to him on this day, since not even two months of trying had resulted in Jason accompanying him on the research ship.

Joe couldn’t deny that he would miss him, and he didn’t even try to hide it. He even cried a little one evening, to which Jason had tutted and tucked him under one arm, stroking through his hair in a manner that reminded Joe very much of his mom.

“I’ll miss you, I can say that, you witty smart-ass,” Jason said, patting Joe’s arm that was wrapped around Jason’s back. “But don’t you worry about old Jason forgetting about you. I’ll tell a few new stories to the interns of you fighting off pirate polar bears by wielding a big book about glaciers. Besides, we have fiberglass internet around here, as well as satellite telephones, it’s not as if we’re not gonna chat every once in a while.”

“So all those stories about polar bears are actually made up?” Joe sniffled.

“Shut your trap. They’re true, of course, what did you think?”

And so it was that Joe saw Jason a lot less in the days leading up to the departure, his schedule filled with taking inventory, meetings of any kind and flavor, meet’n’greets with his future shipmates and so on and so forth.

Two days before departure, another meeting with the entire crew and passengers was called. Joe heard excited and curious whispers (a source of white noise he had become very accustomed to in the last few days) in the hallways on the way to the meeting, which was held in the Norwegian research center, because they had the biggest canteen. When he looked outside and saw the tiny ferry laying at the landing stage, he realized why: the last members of the science crew had arrived.

Said newcomers counted two glaciologists like him,  as well as  six  young dudes  freshly delivered from college,  wh o were doing research about the climate change in general and no one seemed to know what kind of scientists they were, and then there were two scuba divers. 

One of them was a marine biologist, and the other one was a meteorologist who  got bored with looking at the sky all the time . 

The Jason in Joe’s head said things like “daredevils” and “mercenaries”, while his own brain thought them to be quite nice. At least from  their first impression . 

The meteorologist-diver’s name was Tyyne  Seppänen . She was a born and raised Finn, with a strong accent, bushy hair, thick eyebrows and a laugh that made the windows rattle. 

The marine biologist was called Rami  Malek .

What Joe  heard about him in the various group get-to-know-each-other-games they  were forced to play was that he was Joe’s age, that this was his first time in Ny-Ålesund but that he had been in a few other research stations before, that he researched plankton and that he was from California, where his family still lived, which included his mom, sister and twin brother.

“To be honest, I’d almost like to stay right here for a little longer,” Malek said at the end of his introduction. “It’s so nice here. And I get seasick easily, which I only discovered on my way here. Not the revelation I thought I’d have, but I’m rolling with the punches.”

This earned him a few sympathetic laughs.  The captain spoke up again, pulling the attention of the room’s inhabitants to the front, where she had stepped onto a chair since the canteen didn’t have a stage. 

Joe’s eyes lingered on  Malek for a few more seconds, taking in the dark curls fighting against the resemblance of order Malek had forced them into with a lot of hair gel, his big, round eyes that made you feel as if his entire attention rested on you when he listened to you, and his petite form drowning in the checkered sweater that he wore over a button-up. 

He didn’t really look as if he could swim with the 40 pound-heavy equipment on his back, but Joe knew not to judge a book by its cover. Who knew how much horse power was hidden in Malek’s slender limbs.

The only thing was… he knew Rami Malek from college.

They had been roommates, even.

He looked different now. The Rami that Joe remembered had had a  boyish, chubby face and was still a little round around the belly, body still soft with baby fat and his hair frizzy, sticking out into all directions. 

He had been Joe’s first guy crush who he had never really gotten over.

R ami hadn’t noticed him yet, so Joe felt free to stare at him as much as he wanted. 

It was undeniably Rami, with the intense faces he pulled while listening closely, a habit that he had never noticed and which was simply too cute to point out to him, which was why nobody had ever done so, out of fear that he would stop.

If Rami listened to you, then he  _listened_ . For some people it was overwhelming, but most liked to be listened to so carefully. 

In that respect, not much seemed to have changed. His sentences were as carefully worded and pronounced as always, words drawling in that gentle west coast accent. He hadn’t even lost the almost unnoticeable lisp.

The only thing that had changed was the underlying thrum of knowledge and confidence in his voice, amplified by the way he held himself when he talked about a topic he  held passion for .

If anything, Rami Malek was a man who knew what he was talking about.

Joe kept on staring for a while, zoning out on the captain and feeling a little bad for it while counting the rectangles on Rami’s sweater.

Then, Rami turned his head halfway to Tyyne, who was sitting behind him, and caught Joe’s eye.

Time and air seemed to stand still for a split second, and then the surprise on Rami’s face was replaced with a bright, genuine smile of recognition and joy about seeing a familiar face.

Joe swallowed and smiled back, giving Rami a little wave.

He didn’t see Rami again that night, carried away by his colleagues and supervisors, talking about this or that project, and by the way, who are you sharing your cabin with?

Rami solved this problem for him the day after, showing up at the door of Joe’s bunk room with his sweet, curved smile and hopeful eyes to ask him out for  breakfast at the local restaurant (the only one in existence in Ny-Ålesund)  to catch up , and Joe used that opportunity to ask if they wanted to share a cabin. 

Rami said yes.

“Jason, you will never guess who I’m sharing my cabin with.”

“Your long-lost college crush.”

“Holy shit, are you a wizard? How did you know that?”

Jason’s eyes bulged where they were hidden behind an enormous pair of reading glasses. “That was a joke. Are you serious?”

“Dead serious,” Joe said, shaking with nerves. “And I’m bunking with him, so. Well.”

“Ohh. You’re gonna have some interesting stories to tell when you’re back, I can tell already,” Jason smirked, taking off his reading glasses and stroking way-ward hair from his mustache back into place.

“Hardy-har,” Joe grumbled, but then he sighed in defeat. “But yeah, probably. I was roommates with him back then, so at least we’re practiced at not getting on each others’ nerves. Only if he’s the same in that respect, of course. A lot changes in 15 years.”

“Did you two keep in contact after college?”

“Not really. We wanted to, but then he got a job somewhere at the coast, and I was hired as an intern, and like two years later I went to Washington DC, while he was doing God knows what. That we’re both here at the same time is just… well, you get my meaning. I’m glad that he still loves what he does. He took to it like a fish to water back in college, it was a joy watching him learn. He couldn’t get enough of it.”

Jason leaned back in his chair, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. “Sounds like you were head-over-heels for him.”

“I guess I was,” Joe admitted, flopping onto a stool standing off the side, limp as a noodle. “But be honest, look at his face and tell me that you blame me for it.”

“If I wasn’t as straight as an arrow, I’d marry him,” Jason deadpanned, and Joe, who knew that Jason’s husband waited for him back home in Vietnam, rolled his eyes and jabbed Jason’s shoulder.

“No doubt about that, Jason.”

“Absolutely,” Jason nodded, miming taking his ring off and hurling it out the window.

“Anyway, will you do anything about it?”

  
“Well,” Joe started, and then he didn’t really know how to continue. What was his plan?

“Tell you what,” Jason said, standing up from his chair and putting a fatherly hand upon Joe’s shoulder, “I’ll see what I can find for board games you can bring with you. And buy yourself a new pair of trunks. There’s a pool on the boat, right?”

“Ship. And yeah, there is.”

“Ship, boat, whatever. You two are gonna spend lots of time together if you bunk together. No matter if it turns out as I hope it will or not, it might be a good idea to provide distractions. And with distractions, I don’t mean the entire crew seeing your butt through that rag you call swimming trunks.”

Joe winced, remembering the Finnish sauna.  Being naked had only added to his mounting discomfort, so he had kept on his only pair of trunks in an effort to save what was left of his dignity. The quick change between the hot and cold environment seemed to have made the  cheap  fabric break and stretch, being basically see-through when the lighting was right.

Also not an experience he wanted to repeat.

“Thank you, Jason,” Joe said, giving him a grateful smile and patting his arm, missing and almost sending the reading glasses flying. “Let’s hope we won’t end up hating each other. I can deal with ‘just friendship’, but it’s unbearable to see him sad. In case having to hate me made him sad, of course. He might not.”

Jason just shook his head and sighed. “I thought I’d seen anything there is to see here,” he said, lifting his eyes to the ceiling as if asking his Gods for patience. “But there comes you, acting like a lovesick teenager at the age of 40 years.”

Joe sputtered. “I’m 36!”

“All the same.”

“Whatever you say.”

* * *

Joe was about to go home again, nervously twitching around on his chair and feeling like a moron, when Rami came storming through the door, looking winded and wearing his sweater inside out.

“I’m so sorry,” he panted, falling into the seat opposite of Joe and wiping a hand down his sweaty face. “I overslept. I really didn’t mean to, but I forgot to set my alarm yesterday. Sorry.”

“Nothing much changed after all, has it?” Joe grinned, doing his best to look as if he had expected this outcome and hadn’t been close to either shitting himself from nerves or turning tail and tearing ass out of the restaurant. “It’s okay, I forgive you. Shit happens.”

Rami breathed a big sigh of relief. “Thank you. For being patient, too.”

“No problem.”

When Joe looked up from where he had started to scan the menu, he found Rami peering over his own menu card, eyes soft with affection. He couldn’t help the nervous smile tugging at his lips.

“What is it?”

“I guess things really haven’t changed that much,” Rami said quietly, eyes shining. “You haven’t, at least. Don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

They shared a laugh, Joe shaking his head and sticking his nose into the air in faux- smugness , secretly delighted in Rami’s deep- pitched ,  chortling way of laughing. Another thing that hadn’t changed. 

“You look good,” Joe said, and Rami nodded his gratitude.

“Thank you, you do, too.”

“So, how did you end up here?” Joe asked, pointing at the unpronounceable name on the menu when one of the two waiters arrived at the table.

“I’d like the pancakes, please. _Qujanarsuaq,”_ Rami told the waiter, who beamed with joy at the Kalaallisut word. (Joe was quite impressed that Rami knew the waiter personally already, after only having arrived two days before.)

“Well, I finished my undergrad, as you may remember, and then I went to Florida to do my Masters. That’s where I was trained in the noble art of scuba diving. I’m allowed to call myself a professional diver, now,” Rami said, pulling the sleeves of his sweater over his arms. “Got very useful when I went to Alaska afterwards, to help with a study about humpback whales.” His hands pooped out of the sleeves again.

“So you dived with whales?” Joe was impressed.

Rami smiled. “Yeah.” Sleeves down.

“Wow. And didn’t you freeze in there? I’m just saying…”

“Well, we do wear dry suits, but it can get pretty cold after a while. I mostly don’t notice it, though. You forget the cold pretty quickly when you’re swimming beside a whale.” Sleeves up.

Joe shuddered. “I can imagine.”

“That’s when I decided that diving was my thing, basically. It’s very peaceful down there.” Sleeves down, sleeves up.

(Joe was a little distracted.) “Uh, peaceful? Sorry, I think I’ve watched enough horror nature documentaries in my life to doubt that.”

Rami threw his head back and laughed. “Okay, you got me there. It’s not really that peaceful. It’s much… quieter, though. Less hectic, less loud than on the surface. Even if there’s a shark swimming in your direction. I find it very calming, all in all. And not a day goes by where I don’t thank and appreciate the human beings who made it possible to experience that. Also, sharks are awesome fish, if you ask me.”

Joe nodded, poking at his scrambled eggs with his fork. “I guess so. You still couldn’t get me down there if the world was ending.”

“I get that,” Rami said generously, toasting with his glass of orange juice. “To each his own. I get to meet some seals, you can look at ice, or something.”

“Hey,” Joe protested as Rami tried to quickly drown his giggling in his juice, “you _wish_ you had my job! If you knew what I know, looking at ice is an extreme sport.”

“Sure, sure.”

T hey continued to talk about each of their families, joking about Rami’s twin Sami becoming a teacher and thinking back to the good old days in the lecture hall with the leaky roof. 

“I bet they still have the very same bucket standing underneath the hole,” Rami mused, making Joe almost choke on his bread roll.

“Do you already have your PhD, by the way?”

Joe chased the roll with a swig of coffee. “I’m still working on it. But it’s going.”

Rami smiled. “I’m very happy to hear that.”

Th ey spend almost four hours with breakfast, drinking almost six liters of coffee shared between them, spending all of those four hours with effortless conversation. It felt as if they had met each other last just a few days ago, falling back into old, comforting patterns, never an awkward silence between them, always another topic coming up that they discussed and debated about. If they had beaten one theory to death, one of them always remembered this paper or that article about either of their professions, and a few times even outside of their professions. Sometimes you just had to gush about polar lights. 

“I think it’s wonderful that we met here again,” Rami said eventually, when the last brunching guests had slowly wandered out and the lunch guests were starting to gather at the buffet. “I mean, what are the odds?”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “It’s certainly nice to have my best friend here with me. Makes this whole six-monthly cruise thing a lot less lonely.”

Rami’s smile froze a little at his words, but it was back only in fraction of a second, so Joe wasn’t sure if he had just imagined it.

“My best friend,” Rami said, voice going up at the last word in a questioning manner.

“Well, if I may,” Joe said, shrugging and scratching his nose awkwardly. “I mean, it’s been so long since we last met, but I don’t feel like it’s been that long, you know? And you were my best friend back then, so. Uh, yeah.”

“You are my best friend, too,” Rami said, and the weird half-smile was back.

Maybe he was feeling nostalgic?

Joe certainly was.

“I’m glad.”

“My best friend,” Rami repeated softly, and when Joe dared to look him in the eyes again, the half-smile had vanished, leaving a real, happy one in its place. Rami bounced a little on his feet, walking a little closer to Joe and sidling his arm around Joe’s elbow. They smiled at each other a little more, then Joe guided Rami to the dog yard. 

Best friends. That was nice. He could work with that.

* * *

Joe was immensely glad for the sheet of ice on the ground as he dragged his suitcase away from the station and in the direction of the pier. He regretted having packed so many books and board games; the suitcase probably weighed around 20 pounds. At least Rami and him wouldn’t have to do without entertainment.

On his way to the pier he passed the bust of Roald Amundsen, staring straight ahead, face severe as always.

“See you soon, old man,” Joe told him and saluted with the hand that wasn’t holding the suitcase handle. “I’ll be gone for a while, but don’t run off now, will you?”

The bust stood there silently.

“Yeah,” Joe sighed, “I’ll miss you, too.”

Their tearful good-bye was interrupted by Tyyne stomping through the snow, carrying a hiking backpack that was almost as tall as herself.

“Joe!” she called, hopping the last few feet and brushing the snow from her hair. She wore a Hawaii-shirt.

“ _Terve_ ,” Joe tried, but the way Tyyne immediately started to laugh told him that he had utterly butchered the pronunciation.

“No, no, it’s very good,” she quickly said when Joe sighed, “but you still need to practice. Onnea!”

“I will,” Joe promised, turning to continue his way to the _Polarstern_. “Gotta have some free-time in the evenings now, huh? Maybe Rami will learn some Finnish with me.”

“Of course he will.”

The closer they were to the pier, the higher the  _Polarstern_ stuck up over the last houses blocking their sight. It was truly a magnificent ship. Not as sparkly and fancy as a cruise ship, perhaps, but impressive nonetheless, with the way it’s bow was shining in the sun, still shiny and new, the letters  _Polarstern II_ standing out starkly with licks of  bright white on matte- blue metal. 

The weak morning sun did her thing to make the  _Polarstern_ look her very best. The engines were not yet running, but Joe could determine with just one look what amount of brute force was hidden behind its sleek exterior. 

It was an icebreaker, after all.

They boarded the ship, quickly showing their passport to the crewman and waited for him to cross them off the list, then Tyyne took Joe’s suitcase and shoved it to the side while Joe ran down the gangway again to hug Jason, who had  materialized out of thin air at the other end of the pier, his Christmas sweater peaking out of his bright orange coat.

“Didn’t think you’d be up so early,” Joe panted, face burning in the cold, mouth pulling into a wide smile.

“Yeah, neither did I,” Jason answered and hugged him tightly. “I’ll get a postcard from Santa Clause, and you will make it happen. No backtalk.”

“Will do,” Joe nodded and hugged a little tighter. “I’m gonna miss our games. Literally all of them are in my suitcase, whatever will you do now? You sure you won’t be too bored?”

Jason snorted. “Cheeky little shit. My husband is visiting in a few weeks, I’ll get entertained enough.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

“Yes, yes… now go already, before they notice that you’re missing and get away.”

They squeezed the breath out of each other, made the other promise to take care of themselves and promised to write an Email per week at least, then Joe turned around, walked back up the gangway, took his suitcase from Tyyne and turned back around to wave.

It was a little pathetic, since the ship still hadn’t set off, but Jason still waved back for a minute before he shouted something about going back to bed, turning around and stomping and sliding back to the research center.

“Precious,” Tyyne cooed, and Joe rolled his eyes.

When he  climbed up the stairs to the cabins, huffing and puffing with his heavy suitcase, Rami suddenly appeared at the upper end of the flight. 

“Good morning,” he said, two traveling bags in his hands, looking as if he had just rolled out of bed after a sleepless night. “Do you think we’ll get a cabin with windows?”

“Morning,” Joe panted, “I sure hope so. Maybe we’ll even get our own bathroom.”

Rami lifted one eyebrow. “I doubt that. But you never know.”

They switched their luggage on their way up (“Jesus, Joe, what’s in there? Bricks?” “You’re  not even as wrong  as you think.”)  stopping at the third flight of stairs so Joe could take off his coat.

“Get outta here with your giggling,” Joe grumbled, doing his best not to smile. “I’m not as fit as you! I don’t have to carry around 40 pounds of equipment when I’m working.”

“That’s true,” Rami admitted, even though he still looked way too amused. “But luckily for you, this beauty has all you need to get a little of that fitness back, if you so will.” He gestured at their environment.

“Hell yeah,” Joe said, lifting his suitcase up the last flight of stairs, pausing ever so often to wipe his forehead, feeling uncomfortably sweaty in his three layers of clothing. “If I don’t have to pay for basically going to a fitness studio, you can bet our ass that I’m gonna use it.”

“We could train together. Or I could teach you scuba-diving in the pool…”

“Ah, nope. You’re not gonna get me to squash myself into a diving suit. If I use the pool, I’ll be a normal guy and dog-paddle along. You can play the shark. Maybe we should invest in a little fin you can put on.”

Rami tittered, pushing open the door to another blank hallway, walls still free from scratches or picture frames; a blank page. “I don’t think people would like me very much if I did that. They might think one of their subjects broke free.”

“How fun!”

“Really, Joe.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Joe stopped again, leaning his suitcase against a wall and taking out a piece of paper. “We’re cabin A113, which is on floor… that one.”

“Floor ‘that one’?”

Joe pointed.

“Ah. That floor.”

Joe had the honor of opening the door, since he had a hand free. With a soft whisper  of metal sliding over carpet and the sweet noiselessness  of freshly oiled hinges, the door was pushed open, a strong smell of bleach and plastic sloshing out  into the hallway .  They winced, grimacing at the stench of brand-new furnishings.

“Oh, thank God, we’ve got windows,” Rami groaned, quickly taking off his shoes and hurrying to open said window.

“And we’ve got carpet,” he added, curling his socked toes contently.

“Nice.” Joe took off his shoes as well, putting them by the door. Then he took a closer look at their accommodation.

“What are these bed sheets?” he said unhappily, reaching for the blanket and rubbing it between middle finger and thumb. He immediately felt like grabbing a live wire. 

The bed itself was a completely normal metal bunk bed, square and squeaky, just with an added pair of curtains to give them at least a bit of privacy.

“Are the mattresses alright?”

Joe nodded. “Yeah, looks like it. The sheets, though…”

Rami heaved one of his travel bags onto one of the small desks crammed into the ten square meter big room, looking very pleased with himself. “Good thing that I come prepared,” he announced, grabbing the zipper and opening the bag.

Inside of it were his toiletries, something that Joe recognized as medication  for seasickness, bed sheets and a quilt that looked as if it had journeyed around the world  at least twice.

“You can have a pair,” Rami told Joe, pulling out the bed sheets and unfolding them. 

“You’re a life-saver,” Joe sighed, choosing the most boring sheets, stopping short before getting to work on his bedding. “Do you want to go on the upper bed or the lower bed?”

“Oh, I don’t care,” Rami said, shaking out his pillow.

“Well, I always take the lower one, so I’m gonna take the lower one.”

“Okay-dokay.”

A s soon as their beds were made, the colorful quilt lovingly spread out on top of Rami’s blanket, they made to unpack the rest of their stuff, stowing it in the tiny shared closet behind the door and inside the drawers underneath the bed. The board games Joe stacked on top of his desk, next to his laptop, which he immediately started up when he was finished to write a mail to his family. 

Rami climbed the short ladder to his bed and arranged his alarm clock and other various knick-knacks on the headboard-turned-cupboard, then  he collapsed on top of his bedding and  snuggled the quilt. 

“I didn’t sleep well last night,” he muffled, face buried in the quilt.

“Yeah?” Joe looked up from his laptop, face pulled into a worried frown. “Why’s that?”

“Woke up every five minutes, thinking that I forgot to pack something,” came the answer. “Which was ridiculous, because I didn’t even really unpack anything. But it stressed me out enough that I went to make sure every single time.”

Joe grimaced in sympathy. “That sucks ass.”

“Mhm.”

“Well, don’t worry too much. As I know you, you’re never on time, but you’re not forgetful.”

“Thanks, Joe.” Rami’s voice became quieter with every syllable. 

Joe decided to test a theory, and began to hum some tune he had overheard somewhere, while continuing to type his email. As he began his third repetition, Rami’s breathing had  transformed into a snuffling snore. 

There were still some two hours left before they set their nonexistent sails, so Joe dimmed the lights, sent his mail and laid down on top of his bed for a quick nap.

The bed sheets smelled like Rami.

* * *

“Are you ready, kids?” the first officer said into the microphone, earning a few laughs from the younger population in the mess room. “I can’t hear you!”

The German machinist sitting next to Joe began to sing the German version of the Spongebob theme under his breath, nodding his head side-to-side to the beat. Joe grinned and turned back to the front.

Captain Lennhofer took over the mic, a reluctant smile on his weathered face. The first officer sat down on his chair.

“Well, since we now hold your attention,” he began, voice deep and sharpened with a faint German accent, “I’d like to say: welcome, _velkommen_ , _tervetuloa_ , _herzlich_ _w_ _illkommen,_ _h_ _uānyíng guānglín,_ _youkoso_ and _bienvenue_ on the _Polarstern II!”_

The room burst into applause, a few whistles ringing from the back.

“My name is Jürgen Lennhofer and as most of you know, I will be your Captain for our six-month journey. To my left are first officer Jean-Pierre Verraux,”

Verraux lifted a hand in greeting,

“Second officer Kana Shindou.”

A  young woman stood up, folding her hands in front of her and giving a little bow, a wide smile on her face.

“And to my right, we have-”

Joe zoned out for a few seconds, nudging Rami’s side.

“Please tell me that you can speak all those languages he just spouted.”

Rami turned to look at him, face grimacing in a mock-guilty expression. “I have to disappoint you there. I speak Spanish pretty well, and I’m okay at French, but I don’t know a  shred of Japanese or Norwegian. Sorry.”

“How about German?”

“I’m glad if I manage to pronounce the Captain’s name correctly.”

“Same here.”

Rami shook his head in amusement. “It’s admirable,” he said, turning back to look at the captain, who repeated everything he had just announced again in German and Chinese. “I wish I knew so many languages.”

“Well, you can speak four, that’s not so bad, either.”

“That’s true.”

“It’s pretty cool, really. You’re really talented.”

Rami gave an abashed noise, and Joe could swear he even blushed a little. “Oh, thank you, Joe. You’re really good at remembering numbers. And I like to listen to you when you speak about glaciers. You make everything sound so interesting.”

Joe huffed. “Excuse you, it  _is_ an interesting topic!  But I’m glad I can make it bearable for you. You philistine.”

Rami quickly muffled his laughter by pressing his sleeve to his face, shoulders shaking and face turning red in effort. Joe turned his attention to the front of the mess room again, satisfied, doing his best to suppress his own laughter.

Second officer Shindou had been given the microphone, and was now introducing the different teams of scientists that were present, as well as the crew members manning the engines, galley and so on and so forth. Rami had also turned to the front again, mouthing all the names that were called, undoubtedly learning them by heart already.

Enviable.

The introductory meeting continued with a thorough tour through every every nook and cranny of the ship.

T he pool wasn’t very big, but it had two hoops for water polo. There  was also a small sauna, a solarium and a rowing machine. 

The rest of the ship included the biggest cargo room Joe had ever seen, a smaller cargo room for the helicopter, giant winches, a meteorological observatory, a server room, a state-of-the-art sick bay,  three mess rooms with library included, a room the Germans had dubbed the “computer room”, which was more of a technology-wonderland, and last but not least, the bridge. 

“Nice view from up here,” Joe told the second officer to avoid crying out of utter delight.

T hey ended the tour in second-biggest mess room, the so-called “Red Salon”, slightly overwhelmed but in a good mood overall. 

Captain Lennhofer took the microphone again.  “Now, until we finally set sails,  I’d like us to change into the most comfortable clothes we have and meet here again for a collective round of Werewolf. For those who don’t know this game, it’s not hard to understand but very fun to play. You don’t have to come, of course, but the more play, the more fun it is. No, let’s make this my first PSA: you all have to come.”

This earned him a few laughs.

“I conclude my PSA with these words: me and the crew are very happy to accommodate you on this journey. Thank you for your attention, and we’ll meet you here in an hour.” With this, he gave a slight bow, shut off the microphone and stepped to the back where a few crew mates were distributing coffee. Joe and Rami joined the others around them in clapping and whistling, then they left to quickly change into sweatpants and wool socks.

Later, as Joe lounged around on his bed, writing the names of a few ship mates into his notebook for good measure and listening to Rami’s snuffling breaths, he thought about Jason and how he’d have a blast playing “werewolf”.

* * *

The following day began  on an interesting note. 

Joe had overslept and quickly shot out of bed as soon as he noticed, skidded around the corner and burst in on Rami in the bathroom.

“Oh,” Rami said, already dressed and shaved, toothbrush hanging out of his mouth. “Shit. Was I supposed to wake you? I didn’t think, I thought you could sleep in today.”

Joe was still standing in the door, heart racing and brain doing somersaults as it he had just walked in on Rami while he was in the shower or something. Not that that would’ve been a problem, of course.

“Are you okay? Are you feverish? You look flushed,” Rami said, concern dripping from his words. He finished brushing his teeth, washing out his mouth and face, then turning back to Joe, lifting a hand to his face, frowning in his misplaced worry.

“Oh, no, it’s okay,” Joe stammered, but he didn’t try to move away from Rami’s hand, readily leaning into it when it touched his forehead.

“I thought I was about to burst in on you while you were… indecent.”

Rami scoffed. “Indecent? Excuse me?”

“I- I mean-”

“I’m just kidding, don’t worry.” A cheeky little smirk was on Rami’s face, concern paling a little as soon as he felt Joe’s forehead. “You don’t feel too warm, just a little more than usual…”

“Well, I just got out of bed,” Joe said, purring a little as Rami’s hand moved on to play with his fine, auburn hair, almost absentmindedly. “Your bed sheets are awesome. It’s nice and toasty in there.”

“Glad to hear it. I do love that bedding very much. Always use it in the winter. Only con is that you don’t really get out of bed again.”

“That’s true.”

Rami’s stroked a few more times through Joe’s hair, looking almost a little moony, before he suddenly pulled his hand away and grabbed his comb, turning his back to Joe.

_Jokes on you,_ Joe thought,  _we’re standing in front of a mirror._ He could see the blush spreading on Rami’s cheeks clear as day. Maybe he was thinking  _unsavory_ thoughts? Ha. 

Maybe he had a girlfriend and was embarrassed to think about her while sharing a bathroom with Joe. 

Rami had never mentioned a girlfriend, though. Maybe Joe should ask him about it in the near future. 

They ended up regretfully late to their meetings, since Joe had to help Rami fight with and d isen tangle his hair from its meeting with a much too fine comb. 

“Do they have a hairdresser on here?” Rami asked miserable when they met for lunch in the smallest mess room. “That was the only comb I brought, I just bought it in Ny-Ålesund. I’m a fucking idiot.”

“You could ask for them to include one for you in the next delivery transport,” Joe suggested, clapping a consoling hand to Rami’s shoulder. 

“That’ll be in a month,” Rami complained, head falling back in a drawn-out sigh. “Why didn’t I try it out before?”

Joe rubbed his shoulder a little, then he inclined his head to the side in thought. “You could use mine. It’s not as skimpy as yours, and it’s a bamboo comb. Climate-friendly and so on.”

Rami looked up at him, a hesitant smile on his face. “Really? Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” Joe replied, then he jabbed Rami’s arm playfully. “Luckily for me, you wash your hair regularly. And if there’s hair sticking in it, I know have someone else I can blame for it.”

“Win-win,” Rami pronounced flatly, but his eyes were crinkling in a smile.

* * *

The first three weeks went by in a flash, the ship entering the life-hostile territory, as captain Lennhofer had called it. Joe couldn’t think of a more fitting description.

H e experienced his first actual polar night. It was somewhat strange to not see the sun coming up all day, and the meteorologists said that it would stay that way until May. 

The polar lights were gorgeous to look at, though, as well as the overabundance of stars in the sky, free from light pollution.

At the beginning, the crew and scientists suffered immensely under the everlasting night. There were a few cases of sudden depression, and Joe felt dead-tired for almost two weeks. 

Even as he got used to the lack of light, it was still terrifyingly easy to fall asleep anywhere after only a bit of strain on his body, from carrying a microscope or just climbing a flight of stairs. 

Rami had paled a lot during those three weeks, even though he took use of the solarium frequently to stave of a vitamin  D-deficit.

“Be careful, or you’ll end up like Donald Tru-”

“Don’t speak his name in my vicinity.”

“I’d never.”

To Joe’s bad luck, the weariness transformed into sleeplessness after said three weeks of slaving over microscopic pictures of ice formations and calculating air pockets. Too many nights he laid wide awake in his comfortable, warm bed, listening to Rami snuffling away and twiddling his thumbs until morning, the thrum of the ship’s engines a soothing white noise making the air vibrate around him. 

“You don’t look very hot, Mazzello,” his colleague Bianca Juarez Alfaro said one evening, looking up from her Excel table and frowning. “Your eyebags are so big one can barely see your face underneath them anymore.”

Joe rolled his eyes, as another colleague leaned over the table to get a better look. “Polar nights, huh?” he said, nodding in sympathy. “Takes a while to get used to.”

“Did you go to medical? For some sleep meds?” Bianca put a pitying on Joe’s shoulder. “Or maybe you should call in sick-”

“I’m doing just fine, thank you,” Joe grumbled, but he didn’t shake her hand off. 

“You go and take care of yourself, or I’m gonna ask your roommate to do it for you.”

It was worded as a threat, but Joe didn’t really have anything against that. As soon as he had come to that conclusion, his brain reacted as if it had accidentally shot itself. 

The rest of his body reacted with violent blushing. Of course. Curse his light skin.

Bianca’s eyebrows had lifted to her hairline, mouth open  in  realization.  _“Oh,”_ she said.

“I can take care of myself.” 

Joe  noticed that that didn’t really rescue the conversation,  so he gave up trying to rectify whatever conclusion Bianca had just arrived at. 

“Anyway, are you still in for trying out the pool next week? I always wanted to try water polo.”

Gwilym , his other colleague, pulled a face and shook his head. “Sorry man, no can do. We’re gonna reach our destination in a few days or so, I still have a lot of categorizing to do.”

“Same here,” Bianca sighed, squeezing Joe’s shoulder a last time and falling back into her chair. “And as far as I remember, you do too, Joe. Sorry to be such a party pooper.”

“No, you’re right. I keep forgetting about that. Man, I really need to take my vitamin pills. My brain is gonna dry out.”

“No doubt about that. It’s kinda crazy, right? Deliberately letting a ship freeze in the water to become part of an ice floe. Don’t think they ever did that before.”

Joe gave an affirmative sound, looking over his sheet of calculations again, trying to focus his burning eyes on the scrawled numbers.

The burning got only worse as the evening progressed, to a level where tears streamed over Joe’s face every time he yawned, which was almost every forty seconds.  He kept pressing the wrong keys on the keyboard, read the same paragraph for an hour and understood only half of it, shivering with exhaustion in his two sweaters and scarf.

He felt as if there was sand in his eyes when he stared at the underside of the bunk bed, blanket pulled to his chin and brain having a fit in his skull. He didn’t want to take sleeping pills, but by now he was desperate for at least five hours of sleep. Otherwise, he’d get addicted to painkillers for his headaches, and he really didn’t want that, thank you very much.

He’d go to the med bay tomorrow.

As he continued to lie there, feeling sorry for himself and turning from one side to the other, he suddenly noticed that there were no soft, snuffling sounds coming from the bed above him.

“Rami?” Joe whispered, sitting up in bed and frowning. “Rami? Are you awake?”

No answer. Maybe Rami had finally found a position where he didn’t snore, as quiet as the snore was. 

“Rami.”

Silence.

“Hey, Rami!” Joe whisper-shouted.

Maybe Rami had stopped breathing. Maybe he had suffocated inside of his bed sheets and Joe hadn’t noticed it.

“Rami!” Joe called, not whispering anymore, too panicked to worry about having to deal with a grumpy roommate.

He jumped out of bed, standing on tip-toes to look over the edge of the bed, seeing only fluffy fabric and black blurs. Damn his dry eyes. He climbed up the ladder and reached for where he assumed Rami’s leg was. 

The bedding gave in under his hand, nothing solid manifesting itself underneath. Joe searched and patted around like an idiot for at least five minutes when he finally heard a breath that wasn’t his own.

“Joe?” Rami’s voice said, but it wasn’t coming from underneath the mattress or the inside of the pillowcase or something. When Joe turned to the voice, heart racing and eyes wide, Rami stood in the doorway, holding something in both hands, squinting into the dim room.

“What are you doing on my bed?”

Joe was so relieved that Rami hadn’t suddenly died in the middle of the night, that his brain produced a hiccup. 

“Uhh… I couldn’t sleep.”

Wow.

Rami sent him a confused glance. “Are you cold? Do you wanna borrow a blanket?”

Joe climbed down from the bed and joined Rami in the small  sliver of light seeping through the door and snaking over the carpeted floor like a life wire. Rami’s eyes widened when he got a closer look of Joe’s face. 

“I see what you mean,” he said hastily before Joe could open his mouth, words resonating with worry. “Did you- you know what? Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

Joe stood, a little stunned but curious, and Rami took a step back and vanished out the door and down the hallway again.

Joe looked after him. He almost expected a hallway monitor flying around the corner and threatening to call his parents for being outside of his room after curfew. 

He sat down on his bed again after a while, rubbing his aching eyes and feeling strangely numb. He was on late shift tomorrow, so he would be able to sleep in. The damn insomnia made him feel as if he wasted precious hours by staring at the bottom of a bunk bed in the dark and laying around doing nothing. Which was followed with a few hours or work, and then with reading or meeting up with his shipmates or writing papers or emails, also in the dark, because it was always dark. Always. He was so sick of artificial lights. Maybe life in the Arctic wasn’t the right thing for him, after all.

With a rattle of the key, Rami returned, two big  dufflebags hanging from his arms.

“Put on the warmest clothes you have,” he instructed, approaching the closet himself and picking out a second and third pair of sweatpants that he pulled on over the one he was already wearing, doing the same onion-strategy with sweaters.

Joe was too tired to question anything anymore, so he complied, trusting Rami’s judgment of if he was dressed warm enough.

After receiving an appreciative nod, Rami gathered the dufflebags and his keys and guided Joe out the door.

“Where are we going?” Joe asked, walking backwards up a flight of stairs. “Are you taking me out for a little sparring? Like in fight club? Are those punching balls?”

Rami snorted and shook his head. “No, sorry to disappoint you. We are going to-” he stemmed open a door with both of his hands full- “the end of that hallway, and then up the elevator, and then we’ll go outside. Get ourselves a clear head.”

“Are you serious? It’s like, 20 degrees outside.”

“Yeah, that’s why I told you to layer up.”

Joe took a closer look at the dufflebags while they were taking the elevator a story up. Now that he was closer, they didn’t really look like dufflebags anymore, and instead looked more like - 

“Malek?”

Joe almost ran into Rami when he stopped in his tracks, eyes wide and startled. Apparently he wasn’t the only one with the ‘sneaking out after curfew on a class trip’ feeling.

First officer Verraux approached them on his crutches, his prosthetic left leg retired for the night. 

“Where to?” he asked, a friendly smile on his face, followed by earnest curiosity. 

“That’s a good question,” Joe answered, grinning when Rami sighed. 

“I’m just making sure Mazzello here won’t die of exhaustion,” Rami informed the first officer, clapping Joe’s side playfully. 

“By dragging him around at 1am?”

“Well… I have my ways.”

Verraux gave them a mock-salute. “Well, who am I to question that. Just make sure you won’t ruin any experiments tomorrow by falling asleep in them.”

“Of course not,” Rami assured him. “You can join us, if you want, Sir?”

“Oh no, I’m just on my way to get an apple or two from the pantry. I’ll be on my merry way now. You have a nice night!”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“You too, Sir.”

They bid Verraux goodbye and continued on into the direction of the front deck, Joe finally taking one of the dufflebags from Rami and swinging it around a little.

“Sleeping bags!” he exclaimed as he examined it further. “I knew it! Are we gonna camp beneath the stars?”

“Something like that,” Rami replied cryptically, opening the second last door. “Have you been outside in the last few days? At all?”

“No, not a minute. I was busy with calculating- wait, is there something I should know? Are we about to crash against an iceberg or something?”

Rami rolled his eyes. “You’re always so dramatic.”

“Yes, but you love it.”

“Of course I do.”

That last part had clearly been sarcastic, but Joe couldn’t help the weird warm feeling rising in his stomach.

Before he could make a joke about Rami being a softie, Rami pushed open the last hatched door, leading to a burst of bitter-cold air and a flurry of tiny snow flakes being blown in and immediately dissolving on the warm metal floor. 

They stepped outside, Rami guiding Joe to a spot at the railing at the very front of the ship.

It was really fucking cold out here, the wind poking Joe’s face with thousands of tiny needles and the iced-over metal floor slippery underneath their feet. 

Rami squatted and spread a thick thermal mat on the floor, unrolling his sleeping bag shortly after. Joe copied him, feeling gladder by the minute that he had a. dressed in six layers and b. that he had agreed to accompany Rami on this impromptu camp-out, since the icy wind actually did wonders to  clear his aching head, made his dried-out eyes finally tear up and  made his nose start running. It was better than the weird numbness he had felt just a few minutes ago, at least. 

The took off their shoes, tying them securely to the railing and rolled up in their sleeping bags, lying very close due to the limited space on the thermal mat. Joe could smell the faint scent of Rami’s conditioner. It was a comforting smell. A sweet, homely smell that his brain had apparently associated with  _safe. Stay._ And who was Joe to deny his brain that simple request? 

The thrum of the engines was more pronounced out here, as well as the waves crashing against the ship’s front. It was as good as a white noise as any, and next to Rami’s warm, solid form Joe felt a sense of peace he hadn’t felt for a long time. 

He noticed that he had been staring at Rami’s profile for a few minutes, so he quickly turned his eyes up to the sky before things could get awkward.

The night sky was breathtaking. It was as if someone had spilled a bucket of sand, little shiny pebbles and a shitload of glitter on a piece of black-gray fabric,  the moon glowing over all of it like a silvery light bulb. 

“I love being here for a few hours,” Rami murmured, face serene when Joe turned to look at him again. “For a few hours every day, just to get away from everything.” 

“Can’t blame you,” Joe mumbled back, focusing his gaze on Rami’s dimly illuminated face, “it’s a very nice view.”

Rami’s eyes turned to him, noticing that he hadn’t looked up when he’d said that. His lips opened in a little awed expression, corners of his mouth pulling up into a happy, curved little smile. 

Joe leaned in a little more, and Rami also leaned in a little more – 

And then there was a weird flash of green above them.

Joe didn’t notice at first, but when Rami stopped leaning in and instead leaned back to look at the sky, face lighting once more. 

“Joe, look,” he breathed, eyes alight and shining with childish delight.

Joe looked up and stared the most amazing spectacle he had ever seen happening in the sky. 

In his workaholism he had completely missed out on the joys of polar  lights . 

It seemed as if someone had taken bright green and pale blue clothes and spanned them in the sky, waving in the wind like flags and reminding him of fast-forwarded recordings of highways, just  much more rhythmic;  only flowing movements without ever stopping, a continuous movement of unmeasurable beauty.

(Maybe he was crying a little.)

“I think this alone is worth everything else,” Joe sniffled. 

He could feel Rami’s hand worming it’s way through the 10-or-so layers of fabric between them, and he grabbed it and held it tight when it reached him.

“See? I have my methods.”

Joe could more feel than see the smug expression on Rami’s face when he added: “And I got you some sleeping aides. But wake me up if you can’t sleep, okay? I’ll do my best to help.”

“Okay.”

Helping included them sleeping together in Rami’s bed when they returned to their cabin, stiff from the cold and still breathless from witnessing the phenomenon of polar lights. They kept the curtains open, but other than the reflection in the inky black water they didn’t have a very good view on them from there, so they gave up the idea of ‘carpet camping’, as Joe had dubbed it. 

S leep came easy to both of them. Joe took a pill  and hugged Rami to his chest so they could get warm quicker and stave off a cold. 

Seeing the polar lights had caused various feelings in him. Firstly awe, secondly the feeling of insignificance, thirdly the distinct notion of being small and nothing more than a cog in the machine. 

For some reason, those thoughts were weirdly comforting. The polar lights would survive him, would survive his kids, if he would ever have any, would survive every living being on earth. It had been there before him, and it would be there after him, looking just as breathtakingly beautiful as always. Other than everything else around them, the polar lights were eternal, immortal in their own way. 

Joe spent a last thought on abolishing electric lights and light pollution in general so that everyone could finally admire the sky full of stars they missed so much, then he drifted off, Rami’s snuffling breaths in his ear and the sweet smell of his conditioner all around him.

* * *

A month later, the  _Polarstern_ was successfully frozen in an ice floe, moving slowly along with their environment, almost unnoticeable if you weren’t looking at the stars. It was certainly an interesting way to travel.

Despite the still persisting darkness, Joe had gotten over the insomnia with the help of medication, long workouts and due to the fact that he still shared a bed with Rami. 

He had only  once asked Rami (and himself) if their arrangement was, well, weird for grown men like them, but Rami had assured him that he was glad to help him sleep better and that he quite liked having an additional alarm clock. 

Rami was pouring over petri dishes in the lab when Joe burst in, Bianca and  Gwilym following behind him. Joe could see second officer Shindou walking around in the back, nattering something into her phone. 

“How’s it going?” he asked, admiring Rami in a lab coat and safety goggles.

“I’m actually not supposed to be here anymore,” Rami admitted, voice lowered as if to not scare whatever was in the petri dish he was observing. It had a peculiar grayish color and looked slimy. “My shift ended half an hour ago, but I couldn’t think of anything to do.”

“Well then, I have an awesome suggestion,” Joe announced, quickly lowering his voice to a whisper when Shindou turned into his direction and lifted a finger to her lips, mobile pressed against her ear. 

“We’re going to the pool. And you’re coming with us.”

“Alright,” Rami said, put the dishes away into a container and then into a freezer and whipped off goggles and coat, appearing like a little puffer fish with the two sweaters that he wore underneath.

“That was easy,” Bianca commented, shrugging and following the others out of the lab.

“Well, it’s a really good idea,” Rami said, blowing hot air into his hands. “I’m cold, and I really need the exercise. I’ll get out of practice.”

“Can’t have that, can we.”

On their way their cabins to get their swim suits they gathered a few more people for a few rounds of water polo, finally arriving to eight at the pool, finding the area empty.

“Lucky us,” Anna, a meteorologist said, grabbing Tyyne, Bianca and another colleague who Joe didn’t know the name of and vanished in the locker room. 

Gwilym undressed right then and there, having put on his trunks before heading out to find Joe, put his things into a locker on the side and jumped into the water with an ungainly splash. 

As soon as the single locker room was no longer occupied, Rami, Joe and  Andrew Stacey , a physicist, walked in and made to change their clothes.

Rami needed the most time, still occupied with pulling his second sweater over his head as Joe went to shower.

“Should I wait up?” he called, stepping under the cool stream. Hopefully the pool was warmer.

“No, go on in! I still… ah, damn it… I need a minute!” 

Joe chuckled and walked out of the locker room, putting on his goggles and jumping into the pool in an impressive dive.

Under water, he came face to face with Tyyne, who was wearing goggles, as well as a small scuba-diving respirator and flippers. He waved, she waved back, then she turned around on her back and swam to the other side of the pool, hand scraping the bottom. Joe swam back to the surface.

When he resurfaced, Rami came out of the locker room, clad in orange-black bermuda trunks. Joe almost swallowed a mouthful of pool water at the sight.

Until now, the “slightest” Rami Joe had see until now had been when he was wearing his sleep wear, and that still included baggy sweatpants and two layers of shirts because it apparently couldn’t be warm enough for him. If Joe had known beforehand what he was hiding beneath those layers of clothing, he definitely would’ve been more self-conscious when undressing in front of him.

Rami looked very fit, for the lack of a better word. His slender, wiry body left nothing much to the imagination about the kind of strength that was hidden in his petite form and underneath layers of sweaters and t-shirts. 

At Bianca’s giggle, Joe became aware that he had been staring at Rami with his mouth open like an idiot, and in the next breath he became aware that Rami had definitely seen it.  _Fuck_ . 

There was nothing to it, really.

He was allowed to admire the figures of other people, wasn’t he? So what if it was his best friend, who was, frankly said, really fucking attractive, and-

Joe balked at his own brain. 

_ Oh, shit. _

Meanwhile, Rami had jumped into the water and was floating on his back, his face serene and relaxed at the comfortable heat surrounding him. It was terribly adorable.

_Oh goddamnit, Joe, fuck,_ Joe thought. This was not how he had wanted his day to go.

Rami splashed a little and swam closer to Joe, playfully kicking water at him by flailing his legs. Joe splashed back, but he didn’t put any effort in. He was a little distracted by trying to convince his brain to not make the same mistake again.

Rami was frowning, eyebrows pulling together and head tipped to the side in confusion. “Is something wrong? Did you pee in the water? Is that why it’s so warm?”

Joe managed a weak laugh at the joke, but even that felt shaky. “No, I didn’t. I went to the restroom beforehand, like a well-behaved adult would.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” Rami said, and he smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He was still wondering about what had ruined Joe’s joyful mood.

_My fucking heart,_ Joe wanted to say,  _and my fucking brain that apparently also doesn’t know better._

Joe only participated in two rounds of water polo, often too distracted to stare at Rami’s freckled shoulders, the back of his sweet, curly head, his belly, his slender back or whatever else was sticking out of the water in that moment, so distracted  in fact  that he even  threw the ball into his team’s hoop one or two times.

After that, he disqualified himself for ‘stupidity’, even though his teammates complained and tried to lift his spirits. Instead, he dove around at a safe distance, and still his eyes got stuck on that stupid orange-black swimming trunks and the legs that stuck out of them, kicking wildly to pursue the ball or a member of the opposite team. 

He quickly fled the pool when the game came to a close, not wanting to witness Rami rising from the depths of the pool like a merman or something and making more of a mess of himself than he already was. 

He was already showered and tucked into bed when Rami arrived at their cabin, eyes and mouth soft with concern. 

“Joe, are you sick?”

“No, don’t worry, I’m just completely tuckered out. Get some muscle aches tomorrow, but that’ll be the worst of it.” 

“Oh, I’m glad,” Rami said, and it almost physically hurt to see him so relieved. Because he didn’t want to see his best friend suffer, but he didn’t have to think about what would be if he massaged Joe’s muscle aches away-

Joe quickly shook his head as if the shake the thoughts out of his ears.  _Get your head out of the gutter_ , he told himself.

Rami returned a few minutes later, freshly showered and dried, hair standing up and about to every possible direction not unlike a dark, fluffy cloud.

He stepped up to the bed and was about to climb the ladder, then stopping short and just… standing there for a while, stepping from one foot to the other, almost self-consciously.

Eventually, he said: “Are you… are you coming up?”

Joe’s heart jumped into his throat. “Uh. No.”

He had to close his eyes, unable to see Rami’s expression.

Hearing the confusion and disappointment in his voice was enough. “Why not?”

Joe didn’t answer. Rami cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Do you think… do you think that it’s weird? Us sleeping together in one bed? Because I don’t mind a cuddle, I really don’t mind.”

Joe opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. Rami’s hopeful face was almost enough to reduce him to tears. “I know.”

“Then what’s the problem? Do you just not want to anymore? Because that’s totally okay, too, you don’t have to just because I like it. I-”

“I don’t need you for that anymore,” Joe blurted, finally finding the strength to sit up and face him. “To sleep, I mean. I don’t need you to help me sleep anymore.”

Rami’s face fell. “You were just doing it so you could sleep?” he  squeaked, hands opening and closing, gripping and releasing the fabric of his sweatpants.

“Well, yeah. Of course.” Joe frowned in puzzlement. “Why else would I do that?”

Rami pulled his shoulders up, hunching over and hugging himself. “I don’t know,” he mumbled, hands opening, closing, opening, closing around his sleeves. “Maybe because you liked it.” His voice broke at the end of the sentence. 

Joe’s eyes filled with tears.

“I don’t think it’s weird,” Rami repeated, lifting his head and meeting Joe’s eyes, something like desperation in his voice. “It’s not weird for me. It’s okay.”

“That’s nice,” Joe choked out. “But I think it’s better if we sleep on out own from now on.” 

Rami didn’t deserve Joe pining his heart out for him. He probably already felt guilty for it, and Joe didn’t need to make it worse by forcing himself on Rami. It would only end in misunderstandings and heartbreak for himself. And maybe Rami would even hate him if he knew that- if he knew that-

“Okay,” Rami whispered and turned away, quickly climbing up the creaky ladder and wiggling into his bed, alone.

Neither of them slept that night.

Joe kept waiting on the soft, snuffling breaths to start, but every time he was about to drift off, Rami tossed and turned until finding a satisfying position, rinse and repeat. 

Joe had never felt guiltier than now, but it was for the best. Staying a little more distanced in the future was better than Rami hating him or being disgusted by him.

Because, no matter how Joe wished it wasn’t true, he was still hopelessly in love with Rami Malek.

* * *

Joe was ashamed to admit that he avoided Rami for the most part in the following weeks, but to be fair, Rami seemed to do the same, always quickly leaving the room when Joe entered or vanishing elsewhere without anyone noticing.

Joe was sure that their fellow shipmates had noticed by now, but as long as they didn’t disturb the dynamics on the ship or made a scene in the middle of a dire situation, they really couldn’t say anything. 

And honestly: they were both grown men, they should be able to handle fights and fall-outs by themselves.

But in the end, the most important thing was that one could still count on them to help each other and one another without bias, and that seemed to be a given, therefore nobody tried to set up a meeting for them to ‘make up’. 

In the meantime, Joe was unhappy with the overall situation he was in.  It was ridiculous, to be honest; he shared a cabin with Rami but still missed him fiercely, feeling as if he had ruined a decade of friendship with only a few sentences. 

His own body didn’t help matters and decided to betray him on the regular – he had needed to quickly flee from the sauna after Rami wandered in with one of his colleagues, only wearing a patterned towel. He had had half a mind to curse out his own anatomy. Fuck his dick for being so  _horny_ . And why now, when Joe was trying to distance himself? 

He had only done that so that exactly this  _never had to happen_ , so they would never get into the painfully awkward situation of Joe getting random boners and Rami telling him that “he didn’t think it was weird” and that is was “okay”, even if it really wasn’t. Rami was polite like that.

“Hey,” Gwilym said when Joe was eating dinner, shoveling soup into his mouth and reading the news on his laptop. “Are you doing okay?”

Joe just couldn’t help but look up so he could see Rami joking around with Lee and Shindou. It stung to see him laugh without being able to participate and knowing that it would abruptly stop as soon as he walked half a foot closer.

Gwilym had followed his eyes, then h is eyes shifted back to Joe, a sympathetic expression on this face. “You had a fight, right?”

Joe didn’t see any reason to deny it.

“Yeah.”

“Are you gonna, you know, make up?”

Joe was tempted to say something like _“and how is that any of your business”_ but he was too tired to be rude and maybe Gwilym would just drop it if he knew.

“I don’t think we will. The fight based on… very different world views.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. I get why your sad, losing a close friend over something like that is hard.”

Joe nodded, and for some reason he felt a tiny bit better. Validated, almost.

“If you want to change rooms, you could swap with my roommate,” Gwilym suggested, taking a sip of his coffee. “I’m not saying that we hate each other, but we’re getting on each others nerves like crazy. Maybe it’s good to have a little break, just so we don’t end up despising each other, huh?”

Joe wasn’t sure if  Gwilym really spoke of his roommate anymore but more of Rami and Joe, but he refrained from asking. He did have a point, after all. He had a fleeting thought of Jason, who was probably waiting in an email from Joe saying that Rami and him had married. The wish to go back in time and try again was so sudden and powerful that it felt as if someone had stabbed him between the ribs with a dull knife.

“Maybe,” he started when he found his voice again, “maybe that’s be a good idea.”

Gwilym nodded, patted his shoulder and got up to get more coffee, leaving Joe and his guilt behind.

(In retrospect, Joe should have worded his request to Rami a little differently.)

As soon as Rami entered the room, Joe shut his laptop and swiveled around on his chair.

“What do you think about changing cabins?” was what Joe said, and was also the first thing he had said to Rami in two weeks other than the complementary “good morning” and “good night”. 

Rami froze mid-step, eyes wide. “Changing cabins”, he said flatly, breath becoming deeper, almost as if he was trying to calm himself down.

“Yeah,” Joe said weakly, feeling like a piece of shit. “Gwilym suggested-”

“Oh, _Gwilym_ suggested it,” Rami spat, ears flushing an alarming shade of red. His fists were clenched around his sleeves, opening and closing. “Can’t be anything wrong with that, right?”

“Well, I’d say it’s better if we take a break from each other, so to say,” Joe tried to explain, feeling worse with every word falling from his lips. “It’s better than ignoring each other for the rest of the time. It’s not a healthy environment, is all I’m saying.”

“A healthy environment?!” Rami shrieked. “ _You’re_ ignoring _me_! Maybe you should stop doing that and then you don’t have to complain about me creating an unhealthy environment!”

“I didn’t say that,” Joe protested, “don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t say that you alone create an unhealthy environment. We’re both at fault here. And I just want to avoid things getting worse.”

“We could talk about it.” Rami’s voice almost sounded pleading. “We can work it out-”

“Rami, I think not being roommates for a while is the better solution,” Joe interrupted him, clenching his muscles so that he didn’t jump up and hug Rami when his face fell, eyes watery and lips quivering.

For a while, Rami stood still, not saying anything. The he started with: “So you don’t want to-” He shook his head angrily. “Forget it. If that’s what you want…” 

“I just think it’s for the best,” Joe repeated, unable to meet Rami’s eyes anymore and staring at his socked feet.

Rami nodded mutely, then he spun on his heels and left the room, quietly closing the door behind himself.

* * *

Roommate swaps needed to be handed in to the commanding officers, with added reasons why the swap was necessary. They had agreed without really talking about it that Joe would hand in the request, since it had been his idea. Or at the very least, Rami made no move to do it himself. 

Only a day after the fight Joe and his team came across some very strange  readings in a glacier  only a mile away, thus he was too swamped with work and breaking his brain by theorizing and debating with his team.

T hey still slept in the same room, but Joe never really saw Rami anymore. When Joe got up, Rami was already gone, and he returned long after Joe had gone to bed. The only reason Joe knew that Rami still used his bed at all was because his insomnia had returned, and he was too busy to go to sick bay and ask for sleeping meds.

“I just don’t get it,” Bianca sighed, leaning back in her chair and putting her pencil down, rubbing her forehead. “It’s so massive, the measurements should be off the charts.”

“They aren’t, though,” Gwilym pointed out unnecessarily, scratching his head. Their project manager, a young, blond Brit by the name of Ben Hardy, turned the corner, waving with a new stack of paper in her hands. “I really, really don’t like the numbers on this,” he announced, dropping the stack on the table with a dull thud. 

His team gathered around him, pulling out marker pens and reading glasses. 

“That can’t be right,” Joe said, squinting at a table of measurements. “It’s way too warm.”

“Yes, and I can’t figure out why,” Hardy said, blowing out a frustrated breath. 

“We could run a simulation,” Bianca began to say, only to be interrupted by Hardy.

“Those only get us so far, and they didn’t help until now. I’m gonna call in a meeting with captain Lennhofer and see what we can do to take a closer look at it.”

Joe threw a glance out of the window behind them, observing the blizzard that was raging outside. Not very good conditions to take a walk.

As soon as Hardy had left the room, a flood of theories burst loose. 

“There’s one of these sea chimneys right underneath it, I’d say.”

“No way. There aren’t any traces of sulfur in the water. Something like that would be impossible to miss.”

“Maybe a family of polar bears is living in there? Or snow hares?” 

“Oh, come on.”

“I know, I was joking.”

“Climate change,” Joe threw in, thinking of Jason’s shrunken glacier. 

Bianca pointed at him with his pencil. “Probably.”

“That’s so sad,” another glaciologist lamented. “I had hoped I wouldn’t have to see the Arctic dying while I was here.”

Joe tried to spot the glacier through the window. It wasn’t a very big glacier, maybe the  as wide and tall as a football field.  However, it seemed to have the diameter of a flat tire, which was definitely not how it should be. 

They were interrupted in their discussion by Hardy returning, gathering all of them and taking the to the bridge.

“I wish we had more funds for a diving robot,” Lennhofer said to Verraux when they arrived, pacing from one side of the room to the other. Hardy had obviously done his best to make the situation sound as dire as possible. 

They discussed their options for almost two hours, then the team excluding Hardy was sent to lunch. 

Their mood was sober. The  _Polarstern_ was stuck in the ice, for the lack of a better word, and if there was a possibly dangerous factor to the glaciers around them not acting like they should, is was probable that the ship was in danger and had no way to get away quickly enough.

Hardy rejoined them when they had returned to the lab, looking strained but satisfied. They had found a way to investigate.

“Are they ordering the diving robot?” Bianca asked, chewing on her pencil.

Hardy shook his head. “No, they’re sending in the divers.”

A stone dropped into Joe’s stomach. Of course they did, that was the logical step. He still had to hold himself back to fall to his knees and plead for the opposite. 

Time was an important factor, he needed to acknowledge that,  and he resigned himself to call mega corporations by every name in the book in his head.

The divers were set to scout out the glacier the following morning, even though the blizzard was still raging. 

Joe couldn’t help but run to the cargo room, where Tyyne and Rami were already dressed in diving suits and a second layer for warmth that they would pull off as soon as the small motorboat arrived next to the glacier.

As they packed their equipment into the motorboat, which was to be pulled out over the ice to the water with a snowmobile, Joe stepped up behind them, giving Tyyne a little wave when he looked up. 

“Joe!” she said cheerily with her loud voice, making Rami flinch and turn to him slowly, visibly unsure if he should react at all.

“Hey,” Joe said, “just came to wish the both of you good luck. _Paljon onnea_ , right?”

“Wrong,” Tyyne replied, but she was smiling, touched by his try at Finnish, “but your pronunciation is getting better. Well done!”

“Glad to hear it. Are you excited?”

“Well, it’s nice to dive again, I missed it, but I don’t look forward to the cold.” Tyyne patted her chest. “The best dry suits on earth, but you still feel like dying when you go in. You really need to have… erm... _m_ _iksi sitä kutsutaan uudelleen…_ passion! You need to have passion for it.”

Joe giggled, shuddering just at the thought of staying longer than 20 seconds in  literal ice-cold water. “No doubt about that.” 

M eanwhile, Rami had turned his back on them again, fiddling with the oxygen tanks.

The third member of the ‘away team’, as Shindou had affectionally called them, the assigned driver of the snowmobile and motorboat arrived, and Joe bid Tyyne goodbye, who helped the man load the last essentials needed for the samples they were supposed to take. 

Joe dared to slink a little closer to Rami, who was now doing his best to appear busy without having anything to do.

“Hey, Rami,” Joe said, trying a cheerful smile that quickly slipped when Rami lifted his head to meet his eyes, face completely blank of emotion. 

“I’m-” Joe began, stopping short and trying to sort his thoughts. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

Rami blinked at him, and for a moment Joe thought he would pretend he wasn’t there and turn away from him, but then Rami gave a tiny nod.

“Sure,” he said quietly, eyes twitching away from Joe’s and flitting from one corner of the room to the other, hands clenching the sleeves of his dry suit. 

Joe nodded as well, giving another stupid little wave and leaving the room, feeling Rami’s eyes on him like a hot spear in his back.

* * *

Most of the crew were gathered on the bridge, squished into a corner to occupy as little room as possible. They watched as the snowmobile left the ship, shoveling its way through the snowstorm to the edge of the ice floe, where the motorboat was launched. Joe could make out two small black figures and one even smaller figure securing the snowmobile as quarter mile away from the edge, then climbing into the small boat and careened over the water into the blueish darkness, snowflakes whirling around them. He really didn’t envy them.

“How is it looking?” captain Lennhofer asked via radio, leaning over the control board. 

“We’re a few meters away, but I can barely anything,” the crewman behind the wheel replied, voice almost inaudible in the roaring wind. 

“If the visibility gets worse, I want you to abort,” Lennhofer ordered, crossing his arms and frowning. “I still think we should have waited, but they told me that looking at that thing from underneath was utterly important for all of our well-being.”

Hardy, who was standing next to Joe, nodded his head once. 

“A little dramatic, don’t you think?” Tyyne spoke up, having no problem at all to drown out the wind. 

All of the glaciogists gave affronted noises.

Lennhofer smiled. “No, I don’t think so.”

“We’re going in now,” Rami’s voice announced after some ten minutes, and they could hear the splashing of freezing cold water clearly for a moment. The wind was almost inaudible now; Rami and Tyyne were using the built-in radios in their diving suits now. 

One of the screens on the bridge flickered and turned on, showing two views on the glacier that was to be examined, coming from the cameras  fastened to the hood of their dry suits. 

If Joe had been sitting in a chair, he would have been on the edge of his seat. Since he didn’t have anything to sit down on, he just followed the example of his shipmates and leaned forward. 

They babbled on about the temperature of the water (29°F) and about how long Rami and Tyyne could stay in the water ( three to six hours) and a few other things that Joe tuned out, trying his best to figure out which camera was Rami’s. 

He found out just a few seconds later, when Tyyne announced that Rami was going in now, and they even got a look at Rami throwing himself backwards off the boat, coming to the surface only a few seconds later.

“Jesus,” he said, “my poor face. So fucking cold.”

Tyyne laughed and the picture on the screen went blurry for a moment as she let herself fall off the boat as well. 

“Everything good so far?” the crewman on the boat asked, and two pairs of hands were lifted out of the water, thumb and index finger pressed together in a circle, the sign for “okay”. 

“Great. See you in a bit.”

“Yeah, don’t eat that polar bear we hunted on your own while we’re gone,” Rami quipped and both cameras submerged while the crewman laughed.

For some reason, Joe had been of the impression that the Arctic underwater was just… empty. Maybe a few fish and seals and polar bears, but the rest was just water, a few clouds of plankton and the lower parts of icebergs.

Nobody could have prepared for the  literal  _wall_ of fish that suddenly appeared on the screen, hastily scattering as Rami and Tyyne swam closer. The deeper they dived, the murkier the water became, and ever so often a tiny swarm of plankton got caught on the camera, quickly making their way off screen like paddling ants. A few glowing jellyfish were to be seen as well, slowly making their way through the water with gentle contractions of their transparent bodies, tentacles waving around them threateningly. 

“I love jellyfish,” Tyyne said into her radio, “I have a tank with small ones at home. They’re so pretty!”

Joe didn’t really have the urge to pet a jellyfish, but he could certainly appreciate their beauty. He’d still abandon ship if he ever came upon one while swimming, no matter if it was poisonous or not.

The glacier they had been sent to check out wasn’t very big in the lower area; they arrived at the bottom after fifteen minutes of carefully  sinking feet first. As soon as they were at the bottom edge of it, they fired up their underwater scooters, cruising through the icy water and exploring the underside of the glacier, always careful to not damage the scooters or their suits on the jagged surface. 

“What’s happening now?” Andrew Stacey asked, quickly cleaning his glasses and sending an expectant look to the glaciologists. 

Captain Lennhofer spoke up. “They will choose a good spot for measurements, and then-”

He was interrupted by Rami’s voice. “There’s a hole up there!”

Tyyne’s camera showed him frantically pointing upwards, then  centering on a hole big enough for the entire  _Polarstern_ to sit in comfortably. 

Hardy’s face was severe. “Are they really underneath the glacier?”

With a look at the sonar, second officer Verraux confirmed.

“That’s not good. It’s far too big.”

“Should we go in?” Tyyne asked, reinforcing her grip on her scooter. 

“Yes, go look if it’s flooded. We might be lucky,” Hardy said.

“Roger.”

The little light they still had was left behind, the scooters and diving helmets shining their headlights into the thick darkness. 

“Can’t see much yet,” Rami said, voice garbled with interference. 

A technician quickly went to work on the signal.

Then, the light of Tyyne’s scooter did something strange. The beam was stretching  out in front of her  straight-on without  bowing in  any angles, but then  it  suddenly flared like it hit a wall or was shone at a curved mirror. 

Seconds later, the reason was apparent: The scooter and Tyyne broke the surface of the water, Rami following shortly after, giving a little gasp of surprise. They emerged, pointing their flashlights upwards to a very distant ceiling.

The entire horde of glaciologists breathed an  _‘oh, shit’_ , which earned them a mass of concerned looks.

“It’s hollow,” Joe squawked, still not quite able to believe it. “It’s completely hollow. God knows why it hasn’t collapsed yet.”

“That’s not good, I take,” Lennhofer said dryly. 

“No. Ideally we should move the ship as far away as possible.”

“Alrighty,” Tyyne’s voice came over the radio, “should we do out stuff, then? Since we’re here already. It’s definitely easier than doing it under water.”

Lennhofer looked to Hardy for advice. 

“They can,” Hardy said, shrugging, “but they should be careful where they step. Very, very careful.”

“Proceed with caution,” Lennhofer said into the radio. “You’re both dead if the glacier collapses.”

“Okay-dokay,” Rami muttered under his breath, but the radio picked it up. Joe almost snorted a laugh.

While the two were working away, the crowd on the bridge burst into excited chatter. 

“Why is it hollow?”

Hardy scratched his head. “Well, the easiest explanation is that it started melting, enough that it was starting to get brittle, but then the outside froze over again. The pressure probably created a hole somewhere in its peak, and the inside of it just crumbled, literally breaking through the bottom. Now it’s just a matter of time until the rest of it breaks down as well.”

“Fucking climate change,” Bianca growled, squinting through the blizzard to make out the offending glacier. 

“ _Tja ja…_ ” Lennhofer mumbled, mind far away, smoothing his hand down his face. “Moving the ship right now will be as good as impossible. It will take some more months until the sheet of ice is thin enough.”

A gloomy silence spread on the bridge, only broken by a meteorologist with the weather report. 

Joe was worried. Rami’s and Tyyne’s cameras had been abandoned with their helmets, along with the scooters and diving  flippers , recording the small cavern and them sneaking around on tiptoes, careful to not even disturb a shard of ice and to avoid slipping. Joe found himself chewing on his fingernails and lips, too wound up to participate in the discussions around him. 

L ucky for his fingernails, Rami and Tyyne finished up in just an hour, diligently packing up their equipment and putting on their diving suits, and then they submerged again, following the red string they’d left behind at the exit. 

“We’re out,” Rami announced finally, decelerating and pulling the last few inches out of the crevice they had fastened it in.

“Glad to hear that,” Lennhofer said. “Get out of there as quickly as possible. Jiuzhang is waiting to eat that polar bear.”

“Yes, sir,” Tyyne snorted. 

A swarm of fish crossed their path, swimming away as quickly as possible like small silver arrows. When Rami fell behind to look behind him, his camera showed a few jellyfish doing their best to get out of dodge, too. Weird.

The giant block of ice that suddenly careened through the water and almost hit Tyyne explained was a lot less weird.

“ _Perkele_ s _atana_ _helvetti_!” Tyyne screeched, the shock wave throwing off her balance and making her almost collide with the next one that broke the surface a few seconds later. “S _enkin kakkakikkare!”_

“Are you okay?” Rami sounded remarkably calm. He was probably doing his best not to freak out, Joe thought, his heart racing and brain still not really computing what just had happened. Freaking out didn’t really help in this situation.

“I’m alright! My helmet has a hole, though.”

“Get out of there, right now!” Lennhofer boomed while reaching for a button on the control board. “Jiuzhang, try to get on higher ground. The glacier is collapsing.”

Joe’s brain experienced another hiccup. 

_The glacier is collapsing._

Abruptly, his adrenaline glands jumped into gear. In a matter of moments, his hands were slick with sweat and his heart was on its way to his throat, or into his pants, whatever  of the two was easier to reach first.

Tyyne had managed to align herself again, shooting forwards at the fastest pace the scooter managed, Rami following behind her. Collapsing glacier or not, coming to the surface too quickly was still dangerous for their lungs, so they gradually ascended at an angle, dodging falling ice boulders here and there. 

Meanwhile, the bridge was a simmering pot of fear and worry for the two divers and the crewman who was making his way towards them – the motorboat was four or five ties as fast as the scooters. 

“I’m coming up in a few seconds,” Tyyne exclaimed, breath accelerated and harsh. Rami was still a few feet behind her, helping his scooter along with powerful kicks of his diving flippers.

Just when Joe dared to heave a relieved breath, a deep, foreboding  rumble rang out from the radio as well as from outside, sounding like amplified thunder inside an echoing cavern.

Seconds later, the glacier was suddenly only half as tall as before. 

And then only a quarter of it’s original size. 

And then even smaller

Juizhang let out a string of curses over the radio, and Joe registered that he had bitten his lip so forcefully that he was bleeding.

The wave that built from the glacier completely collapsing in on itself was just shy of the height of the  _Polarstern_ . Lucky for them, the greatest part of the glacier had been underwater.

Numb, Joe directed his gaze back to the cameras. Tyyne’s was almost blind, water whirled up with air bubbles and falling glacier-debris. Rami’s was black.

Gwilym’s face in front of him jolted him back into awareness, and he almost keeled over with the sudden noise that he had blocked out before. Lennhofer was loudly conversing with Jiuzhang over the radio, Tyyne’s cursing almost drowning them out. The rest of the people on the bridge were in a frenzy, running from here to there, pulling up statistics and hastily discussing on how to move the ship away, another crewman was gathering people that didn’t belong on the bridge and quickly guided them out. Gwilym did his best to shove Joe out the door and guided him to his cabin.

“Are they dead?” Joe asked after he had caught up with what just happened.

“They weren’t when we were kicked out,” Gwilym answered, trying to be encouraging, but it didn’t really help. 

“They’re gonna make an announcement in a few minutes, as soon as they’ve ridden out the chaos going on in there. Then we’ll know.”

Joe nodded dumbly, feeling oddly removed from the situation, which was probably for the best, because otherwise he was sure he would be crying his eyes out.

They were sipping instant coffee Gwilym had found in the bathroom cupboard when Verraux’ voice rang out from the speakers on the ceiling. 

“Meeting in the Red Salon in five minutes. Appearance is mandatory.”

Gwilym quickly emptied his mug and jumped from Joe’s bed. “There we go. Alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Joe answered, setting his untouched mug aside and walking on stiff legs out the door and to the Red Salon, Gwilym following behind him.

The meeting concluded that yes, the glacier had collapsed completely. Jiuzhang and Tyyne were on their way back to the ship, having to take a lot of detours to stay clear of the remains, so they wouldn’t get surprised by an ice floe suddenly reemerging and making them  capsize. 

They had lost all radio contact with Rami, and his GPS didn’t work, either. 

“We will form groups of three,” Lennhofer explained. “Everyone will help with the search, except for those with a visual, hearing or walking impairment or disability. I will not endanger anyone else, so please be cautious and do not go alone, understood?”

A wave of affirmations rang out. Just as Lennhofer inhaled to continue, a machinist stormed through the door. “They’re here, mostly uninjured,” she reported, face flushed red.

“ _Gott sei Dank”_ Lennhofer muttered under his breath, scratching at his brow. His high forehead glistened with sweat. 

J oe was in sick bay as soon as he could manage, already clothed in thick outside gear and loaded with a big backpack with a bright orange emergency tent, a first aid pack, heat packs and rescue blankets. 

“Tyyne,” he breathed when he spotted her sitting on one of the beds, a piece of gauze pressed to her temple where the boulder had hit her helmet. It was dark with blood. 

“Joe,” she said, voice and hands shaking when she reached out for him. “I’m so glad to see you.”

Joe stepped closer and hugged her, careful not to squeeze her too hard. “Are you alright?”

“Ah, I’m fine. Just a little knock to the head.” She knocked her knuckles against the side of her head lightly. “Won’t even have a scar. And I’m not in shock anymore, which is great. Jiuzhang did a nice job of getting me to calm down.”

Joe nodded, trying to smile. It came out more like a grimace. 

“Are you on your way out?”

“Yeah, I’m on a rescue team, you know-”

“Shut it,” Tyyne interrupted affectionately, “and get out of here and find him. You still need to make up, right?”

Joe couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Internally, his heart screamed in agony as he was reminded of their last fight.

“I thought so. I’ll be fine, so you can go. And stay with your team, promise?”

“I will,” Joe promised, then he made his way to the hangar, turning around one last time to wave at her. She made a shooing gesture.

* * *

“Fuck, it’s so cold,” Bianca complained, rubbing her arms with her gloved hands. “Are we at the right location?”

“Yep,” Gwil said, turning the handheld GPS unit in his hands, wiping the snow from the waterproof screen. “Look for holes and such, everywhere he could have come up. His oxygen should last him for another two hours.”

“Alright.”

They covered a lot of ground, always staying closely together. They only thing they found was a dark lump underneath the ice, which turned out to be more ice. Around them, the blizzard picked up a notch, biting their skin and drowning out their words until they needed to screma into each other’s ears to understand their own words.

“Where is the glacier located from here? How far away are we?” Bianca shouted, carefully crouching over an almost frozen-shut hole in the ice. 

“Just 200 meters or so,” Gwilym called back, quickly pulling his scarf back up to cover his mouth. “Be careful!”

Joe wandered a few steps away, doing his best to avoid patches that looked too thin to support his weight, shining his flashlight down a slope,  having to shield his goggle-covered eyes to see the ground. “It’s too slippery over here,” he shouted.

When he turned around, Bianca and Gwil had vanished.

White-hot panic seized him. Had they broken in? He stomped back to the hole that Bianca had checked out. To his relief, two pairs of  footprints lead away from the hole, unchanged in its size, but it still didn’t explain why they had left without him. 

Joe followed the steps until they stopped, destroyed by the raging wind tearing at his clothes. 

“Shit, shit, shit, shit…” Joe wheezed, turning on his axis and starting to scream their names. 

The GPS was with Gwilym. The radio was also in Gwilym’s backpack. Shit, shit, shit.

Joe walked in circles for ten minutes, calling for his teammates until he was hoarse, then he gave up and continued to search for Rami.

He had lost all sense of time, very convinced that the two hours of remaining oxygen were already over.  It was tempting, so tempting, to lie down on the cold ground and to scream, or cry, or just keep silent, whatever felt more fitting once he was lying down. Realistically speaking, what chance did he have in finding Rami? Joe himself would survive until he was found, he didn’t have any doubts about that; he had enough equipment to last at least two days. But Rami didn’t. If he hadn’t drowned by now, he most certainly would freeze to death in the next few hours. 

H e couldn’t stop the wail of desperation that burst out of him, hanging as a cloud in front of him for a split second before behind ripped away from the wind. Hot tears warmed his freezing face, nose quickly clogged and eyes burning, chest heaving with the force of his sobs. 

He stood there for a moment, head hanging and crying like a baby, feeling utterly alone and hopeless, because he was useless in helping, he hadn’t had the chance to apologize to Rami, he would never sleep in one bed with him or listen to him rant about crabs or plankton or whales. 

_You should have told him_ , his traitorous brain whispered,  _he never knew why you didn’t want him near you. He thought that you didn’t like him anymore_ .

The despair gathering in his stomach was so painful that he almost vomited. He doubled over, burying his aching, numb face in his hands, elbows  resting on his knees, making himself as small as possible. 

When he calmed down enough that he could see again through the haze of tears still streaming down his face, all of the footprints had been obliterated by the wind and he felt wiped out.

Resigning himself with searching for a more sheltered place to pitch his tent, he began to walk again, stopping ever so often to poke the ice in front of him with the tip of his snowshoe.

His eyes were still burning, the light of his flashlight appearing as a smudge on the floor as he slowly made his way towards a hill, the beam burned into his retinas; he still saw it when he closed his eyes. 

For a while, the smudge remained a few feet in front of him, then the distance began to decrease with every step. He began to panic anew. Was he already beginning to succumb to cold exhaustion? Was he losing control of his arms, unable to lift his flashlight?

The distance got shorter and shorter, and Joe felt the starters of apathy tugging at him. 

The same light that he had worried so much about made him stop in his tracks before the apathy could take hold of him completely. He registered three things:

Firstly, he was still holding his flashlight as high as before, and he could move his arms and hands just fine.

Secondly. The reason why there was no light in front of him anymore was because his flashlight was dead, batteries having run out. He should have changed them before leaving.

Thirdly, the beam of light that really shouldn’t exist was coming from  _beneath his feet._

A realization overcame him – he hadn’t tested the consistence of the ice for quite a long time.

Joe had just enough time to throw his backpack onto thicker ground when a wet crack reached his ears, and before he could investigate the source of the mysterious light the ice underneath his feet gave in and he plunged into breathtakingly cold water.

He was conscious enough not to sputter or scream at the unimaginable cold, instead he quickly searched the hole he’ made and stemmed his hands against the sides to not get swept under the ice. Then, he shed his heavy wintercoat, his snowshoes and thick pants and everything else that was dragging him down. 

When he put his hands on the rim of the hole and stuck his head out, gasping for air and shouting a few curses about the freezing cold, he realized that he could see quite well. 

“I’m an idiot,” Joe told himself, took a deep breath, and went under again, forcing himself to open his eyes to see the source of the light. Maybe he’d found an UFO? It couldn’t get any worse from here, right?

It was not an UFO. At the other end of the light beam was a small mass, unmoving  and blurry. Joe’s already racing heart began to beat even faster. No way. Impossible. He was in shock and making things up, there was no way-

The small mass released a stream of air bubbles, and the beam of light moved a few inches away from shining directly in Joe’s face. Now he could make out a pair of very long legs attached to the mass. Joe was just about to tear ass away from that weird thing when he realized that a big part of the legs were diving flippers.

Joe surfaced. 

“Oh my God!” he gurgled, new tears streaming down his face. He could barely hold on to the rim of the hole with how much he was shaking. “Oh my God, oh God… fuck! Fuck! Why is it always me, fuck-”

With that he submerged again.

Diving down to Rami was nerve-wracking, and Joe thanked God and everyone else who wanted to hear it that the light on his helmet was still working. The closer he got, the more he knew just how lucky he was. Both of them, really.

A good part of Rami’s suit was ripped, his exposed skin pale and cold. The oxygen tank was unharmed, as well as the respirator. The rest of his equipment was mostly lost, his belt and all the instruments gone.

Joe felt helpless for a moment, not knowing if he could just pull Rami out or follow a certain set of rules. Eventually, he ignored those worries, turned his head to not lose his hole, then he pulled the flippers off Rami’s feet, wrapped an arm around him and began to paddle upwards as fast as he could. 

Rami was a dead-weight in his arms, face still hidden under his helmet and body slack like a waterlogged sack of potatoes. 

As soon as Joe hit the surface, breathing a loud sigh of relief, he came across a different problem: getting both of them out in the fastest way possible. He couldn’t lift Rami out, and he couldn’t very well crawl out and then levitate Rami out after him with telekinesis; he would probably sink like a stone in the time Joe took to get out of the hole himself. 

Joe hit against the rim with a burning hand, shouting at the pain it caused. His entire body ached from the cold, and he could feel his legs becoming numb, blood-flow redirected to his torso to protect his organs. 

He did his best not to panic at the fact that Rami wasn’t breathing, breathing in harsh gasps as he wracked his brain for a solution.

It came to him when he glanced at what was left of Rami’s diving suit, and spotted his belt. 

“Oh, thank fuck,” he groaned, pulling at the belt and looping one end around a ridge on one side of the hole, then he tied the other end to a strap on Rami’s suit, tightening it enough that his face was out of the water. 

“Okay, don’t move,” he told him, voice almost unintelligible with how hard his teeth were chattering. He also bit his tongue while speaking the last word. 

“Son of a _bitch!_ ”

In a showcase of persistence and pettiness, Joe managed to pull himself out of the hole, crawling across the ice on his belly to distribute his weight as much as possible. Then he quickly circled around to the other side of the hole, where the ice was a little thicker, and knelt, pushing his hands under Rami’s arms, tugging, huffing and pulling with all of his left-over strength.

After two minutes of that, Rami slid out of the hole like a particularly slippery fish, helmet askew, a few wet curls poking out from underneath. 

Joe pulled him to where he had thrown his backpack, pitched the tent in record time and sealed both of them inside,  ripping off his wet clothes as fast as possible and throwing them outside, then doing the same with Rami’s dry suit and the sport underwear he wore beneath.

Rami’s torso was still warm when Joe checked, which almost reduced him to relieved tears.  _If he’s not completely cold, he’s not dead yet._

Joe began reanimation, pressing his lips to Rami’s and pumping his chest with his folded hands, counting out loud, his hoarse voice threatening to leave him completely. 

“Come on, come on,” he gasped, blowing his own breath into Rami’s lungs, “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…”

Count until thirty, mouth-to-mouth. Count, mouth-to-mouth. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. “Come on. Come. On.  _Fuck_ . Come on!”

All sense of time fled Joe as he knelt there, pushing at Rami’s bare chest, breathing shallowly and feeling dizzy with it. 

Maybe it was only an hour, maybe four until Rami spit a lungful of water into Joe’s face as he leaned over to perform mouth-to-mouth.

Joe made an unholy sound, something between a shout of joy and an ugly sob, quickly turning Rami on his side, careful to not lift his limbs higher than his torso, rubbing Rami’s back and chest. 

He sobbed while Rami coughed his lungs out, eyes opened to teary slits. 

“Fuck, fuck. Thank God. Oh Jesus. Rami, Rami, everything’s okay now. You’ll be just fine.”

“Juh,” Rami croaked, blue lips pressed together in-between coughing fits.

“It’s me, it’s Joe,” Joe babbled, rubbing soothing circles on Rami’s slender back, “you’re safe, you’re safe. You made it. I found you.”

* * *

A fter Rami had gotten his breath back, Joe had pulled out the rescue blankets.

“You know what I’m gonna do now?”

“What?” Rami asked weakly, barely managing to keep his eyes from closing. 

“I’m gonna roll burritos,” Joe said, unable to suppress his grin. “A ‘burrami’, if you so will.”

Rami groaned, but his still blueish lips were pulled into a faint smile. “And a Joerrito.”

“Yeah, and a-” Joe did a double-take. “Rami,” he said indignantly, shaking out the blankets, “how dare you be funnier than me?”

“Sorry,” Rami breathed, curling around the heat pack that was resting on his stomach as much as he could without moving his arms or legs. Joe had sat him up a little on the backpack to get his blood flowing again, very aware of what would happen if the cold blood in his arms and legs went back to his heart. It was probably not very comfortable, but it had to do for now, until they got the rest of him warmed up again.

Joe unpacked to other heat packs and piled them on Rami’s torso, then he lay down next to him and began to wrap them in blankets.

The wind was shaking the tent’s walls, but inside their cocoon the temperature went up very quickly, finally defreezing Joe’s hands and feet. After half an hour, Rami finally began to shake. 

“Thank God.”

“Wh- wh- what?”

“You’re shaking. Your circulation is running again, and your muscles still work. Ain’t that nice?”

“F- f- fuck off.”

“Sorry.”

Soft laughter was shared between them. After another two or three hours, the only things that were still freezing cold were Rami’s hands and feet, as well as the tip of his nose, which Joe gently booped when Rami scrunched up his face, squeezing his eyes shut.

“What’s the matter?”

“It hurts.”

“Oh God, I’m sorry-”

“No, not my nose. My fingers hurt. Burns like hell.”

“Frostbite,” Joe realized, tenderly stroking Rami’s forehead to distract him. “How bad is it?” 

“Really bad.”

Joe made to look at said fingers, and found them to be fire-engine red. “I’m sorry. What about your feet?”

Rami sniffed. “Can’t feel them yet, but I’d say they’ll probably feel more or less the same.”

“Yeah, probably,” Joe mused, continuing to stroke his hand through Rami’s drying hair. “But at least you’ll keep them. Nothing looks black to me. You’re a lucky man, Rami Malek. Or maybe it was because of your dry suit.”

“Probably more the dry suit.” Rami leaned into Joe’s touch, but his eyes looked right through him, mind far away.

Joe made an educated guess at what he was thinking about.

“What happened? Do you remember?”

Rami blinked, then he frowned, staring at Joe’s bare sternum. 

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Joe added hastily. “It was stupid of me to ask that now, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay, I promise,” Rami assured him, sighing when Joe relocated one of the heat packs. “At first, I was just worried about Tyyne. I was hit pushed down by an ice boulder and my radio was on it’s merry way to being ripped out of my suit. When I heard that she and Jiuzhang made it out, I was a lot calmer already. Accidents are always easier to deal with when it’s only you who’s in danger, and you don’t have to worry about other people.”

Joe nodded. It was weird to talk about it like that, but it made sense.

“My radio bit the dust, so I tried to get as far away from the avalanche of shit raining down on me. I was pretty deep down at that point, so I didn’t have much to orientate myself. I ended up somewhere around here, ditched the scooter halfway because it took a hit to the battery and was done for, stupid thing, and then I tried to break through the ice. Wasn’t the most sensible solution, but my suit was as good as destroyed and I really just wanted to get out of the water,” Rami recalled, shuddering faintly when Joe began to gently scratch his skalp again. 

“And then… well, my oxygen ran out, and then I saw something on the other side of the ice. I was pretty sure I was hallucinating, but I still tried to send signals with the light on my helmet before passing out, I guess.”

Rami opened his eyes a little more and smiled at Joe. “But you saw. You saw me.” 

“Well, actually, it was more of an accident, because I broke in, you see,” Joe admitted.

Rami’s eyes went wide, and then he began to cackle. “Of course you did.”

Joe scratched at his nose in embarrassment, shrugging with his opposite shoulder. “Well, you know me. I’m still fucking glad that I did, because I also thought that your flashlight was a hallucination.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Is Tyyne alright?” Rami asked after a short pause. “And Jiuzhang? Did they get back to the ship?”

“Yeah, they are both perfectly fine,” Joe assured him. “Tyyne had a scratch on her head, but nothing more serious. Other than the shock, of course.” He eyed Rami’s face. “How about you? Any broken bones I should know about?”

“I don’t think so,” Rami said, leaning back a bit so Joe could examine his torso without shifting the blankets surrounding them too much. “Just a few scrapes from where I got stuck on that fucking heap of ice that pushed me down.”

Joe thought he could confirm this with his very mediocre medical skills. “Well, I’m so fucking glad about that.”

“Believe me, me too.”

Joe wrapped his arms around Rami once more. 

Rami squirmed a little. “I’m… sorry.”

“For what?” Joe asked, confusion evident in his voice.

Rami squirmed a little more, averting his eyes. “For being stuck in this situation… with me.”

“Oh.” Joe blinked and immediately felt like the biggest asshole on planet earth. “It’s fine. Actually, I wanted to talk about that. About- about us.”

Rami looked up at him, eyes open and as awake as he could make himself appear. “I’m listening.”

“Okay, so…” Joe gave a breathy laugh. “I’m an idiot. And an asshole. And a coward, since I’m at it. I was just thinking… we’ve known each other for so long, and I have always- from the very beginning, I’ve been-”

_For fuck’s sake, Joe,_ Joe thought. 

“It’s okay, Joe,” Rami interrupted him as he opened his mouth. “I understand. I get it, I do.” 

Joe closed his mouth. What?

“In a way, it was my fault, too,” Rami continued, croaky voice surprisingly strong with his need to communicate his point. “If I had said something, it would have never come to that. But as you said, we’ve known each other for such a long time, and I was… selfish. And maybe I overreacted a little when you wanted to change cabins- well, maybe even before that. I shouldn’t have reacted like that when you didn’t want to share a bed anymore. It was a perfectly sensible request for you to make, and I’m sorry for having been so manipulative. And later, I- well, yeah. I overreacted.”

Joe blinked, sorted through the words Rami had just spewed and stopped short, breath hitching and heartbeat kicking up a notch. “What do you mean? What should you have told me?”

Was Rami married after all? God help him. Or maybe he had been – no, that option was too horrible to even think about it.

Rami turned to fully look at him, looking vaguely ashamed, but  resolute. 

“Well, that I’m in love with you, of course,” he said.

If brains were able to produce a record-scratch, Joe’s brain would have done just that.

_ Yep, that’s me. You won’t believe how I ended up in this situation. _

“I’ve been acting really immature and, and cruel in retrospection,” Rami continued to ramble, “and I’m really, really sorry, I hope you can forgive me one day. And if you still want to change cabins, that’s completely okay, I won’t-”

“Rami,” Joe cut him off, “Rami, stop talking for a moment.”

Rami closed his mouth, looking like he was waiting to be scolded. 

Joe ran a hand over his own face. “So, wait a minute. You’re in love with me?”

Rami nodded earnestly, and a part of Joe’s brain admired his bravery. He was basically baring his soul to Joe, without Joe really deserving it. 

“I have been for a really long time,” he said, snuggling one of the heat packs a little tighter, eyes averted once again. “Never had the courage to tell you, but I still acted like I did. And that was wrong of me.”

Joe inhaled, held his breath, then exhaled in a very controlled fashion. “Yeah, it was,” he said. “But what was also wrong was me making assumptions about your feelings without asking you.”

Rami’s eyes immediately shot back to meet Joe’s, brows beetled together in absolute confusion. “Assumptions? What do you mean?”

“I thought you just wanted platonic affection, like you always do. I thought if you knew, you’d be disgusted and would never want to talk to me again, that’s why I didn’t want to cuddle anymore. Or share a cabin. So, I’m sorry too. Because, believe it or not, I’m also in love with you. Have been since college.”

Joe was very sure that Rami stopped breathing for a few seconds. Poor guy. What a day this had been.

“Joe,” Rami squeaked eventually, “we wasted so much time.”

“Yeah, that’s true. But I’m not averse to wasting a lot more time, together, I mean. Only if you want to, of course.”

Rami answered by kissing him. 

“Does that mean yes?” Joe asked breathlessly when they came up for air, just to be sure.

“Yes, of course it fucking means yes,” Rami replied just as breathlessly, a wide, beaming smile on his face.

“I am so glad, because that was the cheesiest thing I have ever said in my life. You should feel honored.”

“Oh, I am, believe m-”

Joe cut him off by kissing him again, nipping on his full  top lip and reveling in the soft moan that it produced. Suddenly, he wanted nothing more than to be there forever, wrapped in rescue blankets, finding all the ways to tug those sweet sounds out of Rami, undisturbed. 

Although, it would be a little unfair, since Rami couldn’t really use his hands without being in excruciating pain. 

He was distracted from his musings by Rami’s tongue wandering over the roof of his mouth. Joe sighed in bliss and dragged a hand down Rami’s bare waist, suddenly becoming all too aware of their undressed state.

“I don’t think I can…” Rami started awkwardly when they stopped kissing to breathe. 

“I know, and you don’t have to,” Joe told him, kissing the tip of his nose. It was warm, as he noticed with joy. 

“We’ll continue this when your hands and feet are better, and when we’re not outside in an orange tent, in the middle of a blizzard no less. We still have so much time.”

“I like how you say that,” Rami purred, daring to lift an arm to tenderly stroke Joe’s cheek. His fingers were warm. “We have time.”

“Lots of it,” Joe repeated, pressing a kiss to Rami’s palm. 

Even if the circumstances were certainly strange, Joe had never slept better than in that the tent that night, a heat pack at his feet and Rami’s soft, snuffling breaths in his ear.

* * *

Returning to the  _Polarstern_ felt like they were a veterans coming home, with how they were  welcomed with thundering applause from all directions and a thousand of well-wishes before they were quickly shepherded to the sick bay. 

They both got to keep all of their fingers and toes, which was definitely a plus, but Rami’s frostbite was worse, therefore he had to stay longer. Once again, Joe slept alone in the cabin, but knowing that he could visit Rami as much as he wanted made it a little more bearable.

Gwilym and Bianca met him at breakfast two days after their return, a plate of self-made cookies on the table.

“As an apology,” Bianca explained, when Joe asked after the occasion. 

Joe frowned. “What? Why?”

“Because we lost you. I was looking at that hole and then Gwilym thought he saw tracks leading away from it, so we quickly went to check if the tracks were our own, and when we confirmed that they were, you were gone.”

“Oh, man. We probably were standing 20 feet away from each other without noticing,” Joe groaned, burying his face in his hands. 

Gwilym chuckled. “Yeah, probably. Stupid blizzard. But still, we’re very sorry.”

“Accepted,” Joe said and shoved one of the cookies into his mouth. “Mmh. They’re good. If I’m honest, I can’t even be mad, because I probably wouldn’t have found Rami otherwise. So if I get to keep some of those to give them to him, you’re totally forgiven.”

“Oh, we made another batch for Rami,” Bianca piped up, pulling out a tupper ware lunchbox. 

“You’re the best.”

“Tell him I said hello, will you? I’ll get some more coffee.” Bianca stood, gathering her and Gwil’s mug and stood in line.

Gwilym looked after her, then he turned back to Joe. “So, I guess you made up?”

“Me and Rami? Yeah.”

“Wasn’t as unsolvable after all, huh?”

Joe snorted, shaking his head about his own stupidity. “Well, as soon as we pulled out heads out of our asses it was easy as pie.”

Gwil nodded, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. “I trust you don’t want to change cabins anymore?”

Joe shrugged, feeling a little guilty. “No, not really. Let me rephrase that: really not. I’m sorry, but I guess you will have to bear your roommate a little longer.”

“Ah, it’s okay. What were your words? We just need to pull our heads out of our asses, and then we’ll get along just fine.”

“Why are you getting on each other’s nerves so much, anyway? Is she-”

“He.”

“Oh, okay. Is he a climate change denier or something?”

“Couldn’t be further than that.” Gwilym grimaced. “It’s more a lot of confusion about propriety in such an unique situation like ours.”

Joe blinked. “Are you sharing a cabin with the captain or what?”

“No,” Gwil replied flatly, looking hopelessly weary, “my roommate is Ben Hardy.”

Coffee shot out of Joe’s nose. He burst into wailing laughter, tears streaming down his face and hands searching his pockets for a tissue. Gwil quickly handed him a napkin.

“As in, our project manager? That Ben Hardy?” Joe wheezed, wiping coffee from his chin. 

“Yes,” Gwilym grumbled. 

“Oh, you’ll figure something out,” Joe said airily, waving his napkin through the air in emphasis. 

“What’s going on with you?” Bianca asked when she returned to the table, Joe still giggling like a moron and Gwil looking very grumpy. 

“You can tell her, I’ve had enough of relationship drama for the next two decades,” Joe said, shoveling two more cookies into his mouth and watching with delight as Bianca started to grill poor Gwilym on what the fuck Joe was talking about. After a few seconds, he pulled out his laptop, and started to write an email. 

_ Dear Jason,… _

* * *

The camera blinked, an almost unnoticeable source of light in the brightly lit room. 

A few seconds later, the laptop screen changed from the call signal to a stylish kitchen, the figure in the foreground becoming clearer and clearer with the establishing connection.

W hen the blonde woman on the screen signaled that she could hear them and cooed her greetings, Joe opened his mouth.

“Hi, mom,” he said, smiling brightly at seeing her familiar face. “I missed you! Are you doing okay?”

Virginia Mazzello confirmed.

“I’m doing great, too. You know, a lot happened since my last mail, and I think you should sit down for at least half of it.”

With that, he moved over to make room for Rami on the single chair. They shared a short round of playful shoving, then he turned to his mom again.

“Mom, I want to introduce you to someone, but I think you know him already, from 15 years ago or so.”

Under the onslaught of joy and delight pouring out of the laptop speakers, Joe looked at Rami, and Rami looked at Joe, his sweet, curved smile adorning his lips.

“Hello, Virginia,” Rami said with his smooth, deep voice, and as Joe’s mom planned their wedding while shouting for his siblings and nieces and nephews to get into the living room, Rami snaked his hand into Joe’s underneath the table, warm and safe and _alive_. They exchanged another affectionate glance. 

Yeah,  this was nice , Joe thought. He could work with that.

_ fin _

**Author's Note:**

> You made it! This is officially the longest fic I have ever written, and BOY am I glad to be finally done!
> 
> This is for sweet_symphony0, I hope you like it! I really liked your prompts, it was hard to decide! And I'm sorry that this is two days late, but life got in the way, with uni work and so on. You know how it is.
> 
> I wanted to write this very loved AU of mine for a long time, so I'm so happy to have had a reason to! Again, I hope you like it.  
> I will probably revisit this in a week or so to edit the fuckign paragraph breaks and to search for typos and so on. 
> 
> BLEASE tell me in the comments if you liked this! I've never written such a big (AU) fic before and I'd really like to know if it was okay. Thanks for reading! ♥


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